


Chevrefoil

by Vadianna



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: (an older version), (it's a long fic), (the weird kind where they're together but you need more), Again and again and again, Alternate Realities, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eventual Feelings, First Times, Flashbacks, Hux is stuck on repeat until he figures out he's being a jerk, Hux seducing Ben, M/M, Politics, Slow Burn, Timeline Shifts, bad blowjobs, benarmie, celebrity worship, chapter-related content warnings included where applicable, said flashbacks include:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-10 16:04:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 369,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13504977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vadianna/pseuds/Vadianna
Summary: Hux wakes up, panicked and alone, after a mission he can't remember.  The wrongness continues as he realizes the mission doesn't exist, theFinalizeris in the wrong sector of space, the training program is years behind schedule, the Hosnian System is whole and functioning, and no one has heard of Kylo Ren.Hux's ironclad confidence is compromised, and he decides the only remedy is to go out and find Ben Solo and recruit him to the First Order all over again.  And again.  And again.





	1. Part One: Equitan - Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The events of The Last Jedi will come eventually, but for now, this opens with a year of completely uneventful administrative work after The Force Awakens.

Hux woke from nothing, gripped by terror. He sat up in bed, sheets twisted tightly in his hands, breathing hard, eyes staring ahead into blackness as he tried to clamp down on his thoughts. He couldn’t remember why he was upset, but he also couldn’t remember where he was, or what he was doing-

He inhaled as the world fell into place. He was in his suite on the _Finalizer_. There was nothing wrong, he was in his own bed, whole. He ran his fingers through his hair, his clammy palms moving over his arms, his shoulders, his chest, verifying that he was present and whole. He tried to control his breathing and recall what he had been dreaming about, or anything of the night before. It wasn’t coming easily. He dug his fingernails into the meat of his thigh, trying to center himself on the pain. It wasn’t like him to wake up with terrors, to not remember what he was doing-

He frowned. The mission. He and Ren had walked into that cave, whatever wild nerf chase Ren had manufactured to fill his time, but…

He glanced over at Ren’s side of the bed. It was empty, and his frown deepened. He realized, belatedly, that his terror would have awakened Ren, and Ren would have complained bitterly. Hux would have tried to frame the complaints as concern for his well-being, and Ren would have started his day in a huff. They had a routine. Ren often woke from nightmares like this, but never Hux. He knew the difference between dreams and reality.

But today he was having difficulty dismissing his unease. The normalcy of Ren’s presence in bed would have been welcome. It would have felt less like something major was missing.

Which it was. Where was Ren? He wasn’t an early riser, and the room was still at five percent light, meaning Hux's alarm was at least an hour away from its usual ambient routines.

He laid back down and blinked in the direction of the dark ceiling, thinking of Ren and trying to gather himself. He also could have asked Ren about the mission. Hux couldn’t remember what happened after the cave. At all. They had gone through the diplomatic routine, yes, and the shaman or whatever had taken them to the entrance, and he and Ren had gone inside. It smelled overwhelmingly sickly-sweet, nearly giving Hux a headache. He could almost smell it now. It had been disgusting.

But there was a disconcerting gap in his memory after that. He’d never lost time like this before. He put a hand to his forehead and ran his fingers through his hair. It was damp with sweat, and he was nervous.  There was a low-level panic that he could not dismiss. There was something missing. Something other than Ren.

He was still thrumming with the residual terror from whatever he had been dreaming as he threw off the sheets, his skin prickling in the cold of the room. Sitting up long enough triggered the motion sensors, brought the lights up to fifteen percent and started the ticking of the heater. He let his eyes adjust to the light and tried to let the cold of the room settle his thoughts, tried to remember what the inside of the cave had been like. Had it been cold inside? Damp? Dark?

No, there was nothing. And Ren wasn’t here to ask. Glaring at Ren’s side of the bed, he spitefully rolled over to exit on that side. He did it often when Ren was there, to annoy him and wake him up.

But rather than granting him petty satisfaction, he was unsettled again when he realized that Ren’s side was not only completely cold, but undisturbed. As if he hadn’t slept in it.

Hux paused. He was wearing his sleeping things, loose black shorts and a sleeveless shirt, and his ubiquitous duranium ID tags.  He clutched them through his shirt now in reassurance. If he had no memory of going to bed, perhaps something happened to him on the mission. If anyone but Ren had treated him, he’d be in medbay, not in his quarters.

Therefore, Ren must have brought him here and dressed him. He’d done it for Ren on more than one occasion, having him sent unconscious via hoverlift from the medbay, but it hadn’t happened to him before. He never put himself in situations that would send him to medbay. And Ren had been with him.  He shouldn't have been injured.

That had to be what happened, because Ren was the only other person that entered these rooms. Not even droids came through unless ordered. So something had happened on the mission. Perhaps the cave had collapsed on them. That made sense.

He stood, the cold of the bare floor penetrating the soles of his feet, making them ache. He curled his toes and reassured himself. The cave had collapsed, something had probably hit him on the head, and Ren had pulled him out and brought him back to the _Finalizer_  for treatment.

It made sense. But still. He rubbed the back of his head, finding no ache or sign of injury. And if Ren had brought him back unconscious, had treated him and dressed him and put him to bed, he would have stayed to gloat.

He looked at his hands, his arms, his legs. Had he been injured? He didn’t ache anywhere, didn’t feel sick.

Perhaps Ren had treated him and gone back planetside to do whatever it was he wanted in the cave, or whatever he did in general. Train. Nurse his grudges. That was very likely. He hadn’t wanted Hux with him on that mission anyway. Perhaps he had manufactured a cave-in or memory loss to get Hux away.

But it was unlike Ren to do it in a way that Hux wouldn’t remember.

He turned and grabbed his comm from the bedside table, realizing that he was being stupid. There would be a record of the mission, a message from Ren. Getting rid of this ridiculous panic was that simple.

No. He scowled again when he saw there were no comms or immediate explanations from Ren. And his panic only increased when he realized that the day’s worth of comms and reports that should have piled up while he was planetside were also missing. He had been gone three full shifts, an entire day cycle, so there should have been work to catch up on. The date indicated that this was the next day cycle. So whatever had happened… had just happened, he had blacked out, and Ren had brought him back and gone elsewhere. And perhaps Colonel Bariss had simply… not reported progress while Hux was away. An egregious error, but it happened. Hux would speak to her.

Was… whatever happened planetside bad, perhaps? Would that explain Ren’s absence and the lack of reports filed from Bariss? Hux honestly couldn’t say, couldn’t remember enough. He was still drawing a blank about that damn cave.

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath of the chill air while gripping the datapad tightly in one hand, hard enough that he could hear the creak of plastic. He let out his breath, opened his eyes.

It was fine. Everything was fine. Something had happened, Ren had brought him back to the ship and returned to Ventu, leaving orders for a blackout. Hux would prepare for his shift, then comm Ren to find out what nonsense he was up to. It wasn’t out of the ordinary, it was typical Ren.

He entered the ‘fresher and stripped out of his sleeping things, tossing them in the chute and blinking blearily in the sudden bright light of the tiny room. He focused on routine, cleaning his teeth and stepping into the ‘fresher afterwards, setting the controls for real water. He felt the indulgence was justified this morning.

He went over the details of the mission as he recalled them. The cave had contained some religious relic, sacred to the Na’aa’ina. Ren had wanted to investigate both the relic and the religion as a means to supplement his own power.

Such errands were what the two of them had been reduced to since Starkiller’s implosion. They hunted any and all rumors of Resistance activity, but none of it had amounted to anything. The Resistance seemed effectively dead, gone along with the Hosnian System and that humiliating defeat at Starkiller Base, the remnants hunted down just after. Hux patrolled his quadrant in the Unknown Regions and broke up in-fighting among the planets, and Ren researched religion and culture. Aside from being a flagrant indulgence in his personal interests, it aided negotiations in hostile situations and material trading, which Ren was now in charge of.

But he also explored rumors of religious relics and sites of old practitioners, obsessed with finding some new way to access his Force through another system of belief. He frequently ordered the _Finalizer_  on expeditions deep into Wild Space to investigate. Hux still made a show of protesting these trips, claiming that they should be advancing into the Mid-Rim. But others were doing that for him, with much smaller ships containing minimal Troopers and staff. They met no resistance from any of the planetary governments. Which of course they wouldn’t. Mon Mothma had ordered Republic space demilitarized decades ago, and the ease of the current transition was laughable.

With so little to do, Hux found Ren’s personal and very expensive expeditions to be more interesting than figuring out if a shipment of ore had actually been stolen by pirates or reported stolen to pad income in a corrupted system.

As Hux stood and let the hot water scald his skin and calm his nerves, he remembered. They had been on Ventu, which was rumored to have a cave that had some ritual attached. Hux couldn’t be bothered to listen to the details when Ren explained why they absolutely _had_  to go so many parsecs out of the way of their regular patrol. Hux had gone out of boredom, but insisted that it was because Ren was too surly when he negotiated. Which was true, but they had a perfectly serviceable protocol droid, and Ren was generally more culturally sensitive than Hux. But Hux didn’t tell him that.

So Hux had sat through the tediousness of Ren meeting with the shaman on Ventu, and Ren and the protocol droid and the shaman had gone back and forth in whatever barking language they had there. It had been embarrassing, because neither Ren nor the Shaman had seemed to understand that you speak to each other, and not the protocol droid doing the translations. He hadn’t paid attention to most of it, though Ren seemed absorbed. Sometimes Hux liked to see him work. He was like another person when he was speaking of beliefs. They never failed to capture his interest, and it was one of the rare times he seemed at peace with himself. He hadn’t been like that in a long time.

Sometimes it was interesting, and sometimes it was infuriating. Why did it have to be these stupid, convoluted missions that made Ren happy?

Hux hadn’t paid attention to most of the details of the translated conversation, though. Snoke had commed in the middle, because of course he had. The planet smelled bad, like sweet flowers, so thickly that Hux felt like he was being choked. He remembered giant birds, the little red-skinned humanoids, the disgusting purple pollen that had gotten everywhere.

His recollection of everything was very clear. He and Ren had fought about the cave. They’d gone inside, it had been too dark to see and somehow smelled even worse. There’d been a moment where they talked about _themselves_ , which never went well. He’d followed Ren further into the cave.

And then, nothing. Try as he might, Hux could not remember what came next. Just waking up in his bed, alone and frightened. Why frightened? Had it been a nightmare? Had it been something on the planet? Had the Ventu artifact in the cave _actually_  held some sort of power?

He huffed, switching the 'fresher to the dry function, feeling the tug and clatter of the duranium ID tags on the chain around his neck as the streams of hot air blew down on him. He stepped out and began the calming process of pulling on his uniform.

No, it wasn’t that the cave had some sort of mystic magical power. But maybe it had been dangerous in another way. Native fauna, or that sweet smell had been some sort of biological contaminant. They’d scanned the surface thoroughly, but it wouldn’t be the first time something like that had happened. Perhaps they’d inhaled something that had disagreed with them, and Ren had brought both of them back, then gone back for his artifact.

But where was Ren, then? He’d obviously been gone for some time. It wouldn’t have taken that long for him to retrieve the artifact from the cave, unless it was large or required special extraction? Hux would have been involved in anything like that, Ren was terrible at planning anything that wasn’t a battle. He’d mentioned wanting to meditate alone, but Ren had never been able to meditate, and wouldn’t have done that for very long.

Maybe Ren had been injured somehow? That was a possibility. Hux left his quarters and used his datapad as he walked to the transport to check the records from medical. Perhaps Ren had checked himself into the suite.

He wasn’t registered, which was annoying. He might not be. Hux made a low noise in the back of his throat, then stowed his datapad in his greatcoat and programmed the transport to take him to the Officer’s medical facility. There was enough time before his shift that Hux could stop in and ask Ren what had happened.

 

* * *

 

“Has Ren checked in,” Hux asked the officer on duty brusquely, straightening his gloves as he walked purposefully into the medical unit. The lighting was always too high here, glinting off the white walls, the industrial durasteel counters, the windows that everyone insisted made the place less depressing, even though they only looked out into the gray halls of the ship.

The officer, a med lieutenant wearing a modified white-and-gray uniform with the square cap unique to the unit, looked baffled. Occasionally, younger officers would be overwhelmed in his presence, and it was tedious if it happened at the wrong time.

The Lieutenant straightened and did his best to look sharp. “..Sir?”

Hux thinned his lips. He could repeat himself and go through the usual star-struck routine with this lieutenant, but he needed to get on with his day. He was still feeling unsettled and vaguely panicked, and hated that Ren was the one that could undo the feeling. He didn’t have time for this.

“Nevermind. I’ll check myself. As you were.”

Without waiting for a response, Hux walked the length of the mostly-empty Officer’s medical wing. It was ridiculous to have all this space dedicated to it, when officers were rarely on the front lines. They sometimes used it for Trooper Command, just so it wasn't such a waste.

Ren used it, of course. Hux made his way to the very end of the hallway, where there was a private unit reserved for Commanders.

He saw the windows were dark, and something tightened inside him before he even opened the door to reveal that the room was completely empty. He didn’t bother raising the light level, and the small, cheerless med suite was illuminated by the square of light from the hall.

He turned to leave, laid his hands on the controls to close the door behind himself, then suddenly stopped, looking back with a more profound sense of creeping unease.

It was more orderly than the last time he’d seen it. Definitely. It was small things that caught his attention first, and then he scanned the room, looking for confirmation of larger imperfections, specific memories. All of it had been eradicated. The history of the room, of he and Ren using the room, was simply gone.

Granted, neither he nor Ren had been on a mission that had injured them in quite some time. These little diplomatic jaunts were rarely dangerous. And the last time Hux had needed this suite, other than the colossal failure at Starkiller, had been when the Taurian flu epidemic had swept through the ship.

Still. It wasn’t a medical suite they maintained, and none of these repairs or restocks were necessary. The more he looked, the more confused he was about _who would bother_  with such things. The bed had obviously been replaced. The rails had been bent out of shape when Ren had woken up after that mission on Be’llx. Hux had been paged that time, to calm him down. They’d never fixed it. Someone, suddenly, had.

He turned and took in the whole window panel, looking out onto the hallway. He hadn’t bothered to notice when he came in, but it was obvious now. The pane wasn’t cracked, and the mechanism for obscuring the view into the chamber had been replaced. That had gone when Ren had tried re-starting his little Force order and had found his new recruits had simply tried to stab him in the back as he’d slept. That had gone very poorly indeed, for everyone involved. Ren had been rattled mentally and stabbed straight through the right side of his chest, and Hux had sat with him as the droids had worked on his lungs and stitches, calming him as Ren struggled in the restraints, obviously reliving bad memories and in a rage against the entire galaxy.

They’d simply tacked a cloth over the window after that. Neither of them had needed that “cheerful” view into the rest of the ship.

Idly, Hux turned up the lights in the room and checked the cabinets. They were well-stocked with bandages, bacta, painkillers, splints, and all the small implements - scissors, tweezers, gauze, antiseptic - that he and Ren regularly pilfered from here.

He stared into what looked to be an untouched cabinet of medical supplies, one he knew he’d personally depleted of bacta not long ago. He contemplated the regulation-perfect stacks of personal and emergency bacta patches for several moments, and then used his datapad to search for a work order.

There was none. The repairs in the suite had been off the record. Which didn’t make sense. There was no reason for that. Why would someone make repairs to Ren’s medical suite without his authorization, and then hide all traces of it? The uneasy feeling came back. Hux pushed it down with a firm hand. An administrative oversight like this was no reason to _panic_. It just had to be set right.

He walked quickly down the hallway, boots tapping in the stillness of the unused officer suite, and reached the on-duty Lieutenant at the reception desk. He gave the young Lieutenant a chilly glare, hoping to do away with the starstruck attitude quickly.

“Name and position.”

The officer straightened. “Sir. Lieutenant Holm, specialty admin.”

“How long have you been stationed here?” Hux knew, of course. The med staff hadn’t been rotated in a full year, and Hux vaguely recognized this man. But he needed to approach this situation carefully, and didn’t want the Lieutenant to get defensive.

“A year, sir. A little more.”

“When were the repairs to the Commander’s Suite authorized?”

“…Sir?”

“The suite has been repaired in my absence, Holm, and I want to know who authorized the expense.” It was a small thing, but they really weren’t operating on much surplus. Such unnecessary repairs needed to be addressed, and moreover, such things needed to go through him. Would Colonel Bariss really have done such a thing? She wasn't frivolous, and she no longer acted independently. And there also hadn’t been time to requisition and repair everything in a single day cycle.

“I… was not aware you were absent, sir, but I’m also not aware of any repairs to the Commander’s Suite.”

Hux blinked. He hadn’t expected this. “When was the last time you entered it?”

Holm shifted, looking more nervous. “It’s… been some time, sir. Visual checks of the suites aren’t part of the staff routines. But I can pull up the droid maintenance log? If… if that’s something that would help?”

Hux paused. Would it? Obviously Holm had no idea what Hux was talking about, and there was no record of it in the system. Hux would have to interrogate all of the Officers who were shifted in his absence. Or the entire admin staff, possibly going back to the last time he was in the suite himself.

He made a note on his datapad and began to leave the med wing, but stopped himself, turning back around just before he exited. A new dread crept into his thoughts, something else to worry about, and something twisted in the pit of his stomach as he turned back and asked an impulsive question that he knew he would regret.

“When was the last time you saw Kylo Ren here?” The information was functionally useless if Ren wasn’t here now. Still, some part of him needed to ask. Even if he got an irrelevant answer, it would somehow be soothing confirmation, a note of normalcy. He needed normalcy this morning.

“Kylo Ren?” That confused look again, which was increasingly making Hux want to slap the officer.

“Yes, Kylo Ren!” He snapped. “Supreme Leader’s apprentice, Master of the Knights of Ren, that Kylo Ren! The other Commander of the ship, the other person authorized to use the Commander’s Suite!”

The unwarranted outburst left Holm looking panicked and near tears. “Sir. I… I was unaware of another Commander. I’ve never… met Kylo Ren.”

Hux narrowed his eyes. He was sure he’d seen Holm on duty when he’d come here with Ren before.

Not to mention that it was impossible for active First Order personnel not to know Ren. He was used almost as extensively as Hux in propaganda. There was hours of footage circulating of Ren deflecting blaster bolts with his sword, bringing down opponents in the heat of battle, verbally threatening their enemies, anything that made them look strong.

“Have you been reprogrammed lately?”

Holm shrank back visibly, now completely terrified. “No sir, never, I’ve always been a loyal officer of the First Order.”

Reprogramming would have explained memory loss. Hux narrowed his eyes again, ignoring the wrongness that was now rising up his stomach and threatening to choke him. He pushed it back down. Mis-handled paperwork, an incompetent officer. It happened.

He made another note on his datapad for a thorough competence check of Lieutenant Holm of medical, and left the suite for the bridge.

 

* * *

 

The normalcy of the bridge was a comfort. Hux marched along the raised walkway with all the personnel monitoring the routines of the _Finalizer_ in the pits below him, and he was able to dispel his worries from the med bay. All it took was the visual confirmation of routine, the sight of the ship moving ever onward through the quadrant, and suddenly Hux was back in control, the fantasies he’d woken up to forgotten.

He took several minutes to make a complete circuit, slowing and stopping at each station to observe the officers and staff at work. Once he was satisfied and feeling more himself, he sought out Colonel Bariss, who was finishing a course correction with the nav officer. He stood and waited, listening to the exchange and reveling in the banality.

“General Hux.” she turned to him when finished, offering him a crisp, regulation salute.

“Colonel, I’ve returned.” He paused, and to his horror, saw the same confusion as Holm cross her features, even if just for an instant before her training took over and she hid her expression.

That was all it took for his anxiety to return, crashing into him like a wave and tightening his posture incrementally. Ridiculous. It was a facial expression, and this was business as usual.

“Of course, sir. Would you like me to resume monitoring intelligence reports for the Weequay Lona Pirates?”

His own confusion, heady and unwelcome, hit him as he tried to understand her question. He had never heard of those pirates. But he stifled his confusion better than Bariss had, some instinct telling him not to ask her outright about it. The same instinct that he’d tried and failed to suppress when he’d asked about Kylo Ren earlier.

“Of course. And how long has this chase been going on now, Colonel?”

Another confused expression, there and gone in the blink of an eye. “About three standard weeks, sir.” She paused. “We’re very close to capturing them at the site of a theft. I believe I may have them within another standard week, if the course corrections work out.”

“Of course.” He paused, feeling sick, not sure how to pursue this. Then inspiration struck, as he brought his datapad out. “Are all the reports up to date in the system?”

“Yes, sir, up through the beginning of your sleep shift, after I took command.”

He glanced at her briefly. The extra clarification wasn’t necessary, but it was also true that she’d been in command for over a standard day. Perhaps she meant the beginning of his sleep cycle was the beginning of her active shift on the bridge. Which would have been strange, but perhaps she thought it worth noting for some reason.

Setting that aside, he punched the Weequay Lona Pirates into a search, not expecting a hit. He nearly dropped the datapad when a long list of reports came up. Lists of surveillance, crime logs, profiles, various intelligence reports from across the Unknown Regions. All backdated two or more months.

His hands started shaking incrementally, and he forced them to stillness as he lowered his datapad again, dropping it back into his greatcoat and stuffing his hands in his pockets to hide the tremor. “And where are your reports from my absence?” He asked more sharply, trying desperately to get his bearings, to get control of this situation, which had been lost in some unfathomable way that was obvious only to him.

“Your… absence?” This time, Bariss didn’t bother hiding her confusion, or the contempt that curled her lip. Hux and Bariss had history, and she was smart and clever, but Hux knew she was looking for a place to slide the knife into his back, and he hated the thought of presenting her with one now.

“I haven’t filed my report yet, as is regulation. I will do so within thirty minutes of the completion of my command. _Sir_.”

The ‘sir’ couldn’t have borne more sarcasm, and Hux blinked, deciding to ignore his gut feeling and push through. He gathered his own contempt to himself and mustered a look of scorn.

“And what about the other shifts, _Colonel_. I was gone for three standard cycles. Certainly reports should exist from that time?”

Bariss’s eyes widened, and he noticed that other work had stilled in the area to more easily accommodate eavesdropping. Bariss looked at the nav officer beside her, who turned to meet her gaze. They both turned to look at Hux for a moment. Hux hated it. The anxiety rose to choke him, and he felt the beginnings of a hollow ache in the back of his head.

“All due respect, sir, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The silence spread, and something in Hux was warning him, a klaxon ringing across his mind, to navigate this situation carefully. He lowered his voice, took a step in closer, tried to be as imposing as possible.

“Perhaps it somehow escaped your notice, Colonel, that you’ve been the paramount on board the _Finalizer_  for three standard shifts, while I was on a mission with Kylo Ren. _Where_  are your reports?”

Bariss gave him a long look, before turning to the nav officer. “Lieutenant Hoyt, bring up the timestamp of the General’s last course correction.”

“Right away, Colonel.” As the Lieutenant tapped at the console, Bariss’s head remained turned toward him, but her eyes never left Hux.

“Last course correction by General Hux authorized fifteen hours, seventeen minutes ago. Navigating into the Varrian-Gorta Trade Route. Heading six nine dash-”

“ _Enough_ ,” Hux snapped, stepping forward and scrolling through the search that the Lieutenant had made of his headings. The search went back two weeks, and indicated normal activity, all orders given during his scheduled shifts.

Except he hadn’t been here for shifts scheduled fifteen hours ago, or thirty hours ago. But there they were, orders authorized by him. What was more unusual…

None of the headings matched where the _Finalizer_  was in space. They were in the Realis sector of Wild Space, but this showed-

“The Varrin sector,” he mumbled. It wasn’t even in his quadrant. He turned to Hoyt, noticing that more than just Hoyt and Bariss were staring at him now. But the situation was growing more absurd by the moment.

“How long have we been in the Varrin sector.”

Hoyt seemed at a loss, looking from Hux to the monitor. “Months, sir. I couldn’t say. We’ve been… we’ve been tracking the pirates here. Do you want a precise date?”

“No.” He stepped backwards, cut a sharp glance to the Colonel, whose expression was currently guarded and watchful. None of this made sense. There was a low buzzing noise, like static, cutting through his thoughts now, as his officers, the filed reports, and even the _Finalizer_  were undermining his own memories. Questions roared through his mind. He knew better than to ask them in public. And yet. He had to.

“Where is Kylo Ren?”

Bariss’s look went from wary to tired. “Who is Kylo Ren, sir?”

Hux blinked, then turned to the Nav officer. “Lieutenant Hoyt, when was the last time Kylo Ren was on the bridge?”

Hoyt shook his head. “I don’t know any Kylo Ren, sir. What’s his rank?”

Hux took a step back, more frantic now, turning toward the nearby comm array. “Major Bligh. Where is Kylo Ren?”

Bligh, who was the main point of contact for Ren on his missions, shook her head. “A person? I couldn’t say, General.”

He took several steps over to the TIE fleet control, aware that he was making a spectacle of himself, but unable to stop.

“Major Goen. When was the last time you saw Kylo Ren?”

Major Goen had ordered the preparation of their transport to Ventu, and had seen them off in Hangar 9. She was the officer in charge of maintenance on Ren’s TIE, his transport, and the rest of his personal equipment.

She gave Hux the same blank stare, concealing who knew what. “I’ve never met anyone named Kylo Ren, General.”

He took several steps over to the internal comm station. “Lieutenant Mitaka. When was the last time you saw Kylo Ren?”

And Lieutenant Mitaka, who was actively terrorized by Ren and avoided him at all costs, a man who had suffered abuse at Ren’s hand, shook his head. “Never, General Hux.”

He stared around the bridge, and almost all eyes were on him. He was speechless. He looked to Bariss, then to Captain Peavey, who was his second in command for alpha shift. He swallowed. Bariss stepped forward.

“You are unwell this morning, General. Perhaps a trip to medical?”

He’d been to medical. He did not wish to return. “No, Colonel, unnecessary,” he snapped, maybe too harshly. Bariss thinned her lips and stood at attention, looking him up and down. Hux felt like fleeing his own bridge. The ache at the back of his mind grew worse, the humming static noise louder. He looked from face to face, staring at him in open curiosity. The General, breaking down in full view of the Command staff. Truly a spectacle.

He had no idea what was going on, but it was Ren’s fault. He couldn’t command the bridge like this, though. Not after this outburst, and not with so many unanswered questions.

“Captain Peavey, I am leaving the command to you. I will be in my office.”

He turned and left with as much authority as he could muster. But the klaxon warning was still blaring through his head, along with the panic and fear and everything else he’d been trying to dismiss. He may as well have woken up in a different fleet this morning.

Ren. It was something to do with Ren. It was his fault. Hux just had to find him to put a stop to whatever this game was.

 

* * *

 

Finding him proved to be difficult. It was clear that Ren was the architect of all Hux’s problems today. Ren had somehow brainwashed every crewmember aboard the _Finalizer_. Hoping to move ahead of the rumors of his humiliation on the bridge, Hux had commed departments around the ship, including several officers in the TIE bays, a few different departments that dealt with Trooper training, and even the alternate medbay near the hangars. He’d met with confusion when he’d asked if Kylo Ren had given orders recently, and he cut the exchanges off immediately when he sensed they were leading nowhere.

Ren had, of course, taken his tracker offline and done Hux the favor of erasing himself entirely from every record on the ship. No source of information, including mission briefs and past propaganda, had any mention of Kylo Ren. He was also beginning to suspect that the chronometers had been tampered with. There was no way Ren had managed all this in what must have been only hours between the end of the mission and when Hux had woken up.

The thought of all the effort Ren had put into such an obvious deception had Hux seething. Why would he waste such a colossal amount of time and effort on this?

It wasn’t the same as Ren’s usual nonsense. This was far more ambitious, and on a much larger scale. Hux’s panic had mostly receded when he’d realized that only Ren could have done something like this, but he couldn’t completely dismiss his anxiety, or the feeling of wrongness. Ren could, but would he?

Perhaps Snoke. That was a different matter. But Hux couldn’t imagine what Snoke would get out of this, either. Snoke rarely bothered with Hux, and had always been clear about expectations. This kind of senseless, baroque punishment wasn’t his style.

And though it wasn’t Ren’s style either, Ren was much more a creature of whim, and always had been. So that was the only answer. This was Ren’s doing, and the reason behind it was yet unclear.

He made all his inquiries to the various departments as he rode the transports across the length of the _Finalizer_. While the comms grew more and more frustrating as evidence of the conspiracy piled up, Hux became more certain all of it would end when he reached his destination. Ren had to be there.

Hux was enroute to what was officially the “Commander’s Health Suite,” but it was mostly just the rooms Ren exercised in. If he was on board the ship and not scheduled, he was either here or sleeping. He spent hours of every day sequestered here by himself. Hux continued to insist that the suite was for both Commanders, and that he used it too, but he rarely did. The main area was cavernous, extending up three levels that had originally contained part of the fabrication plant for Trooper armor. It now had a ground floor full of mats and droids that Ren used primarily for his saber training, a series of catwalks on the second level that held a variety of equipment that Hux claimed was for himself but was likely still used most by Ren, and a track on the third level. This was what Hux made use of most often, and Ren not at all. Ren felt that running was ‘useless’ and ‘the bare minimum of what you should be doing,’ and ‘why even try at all.’

There were also showers and dressing rooms for each of them on the ground floor, including a ridiculous giant tub with water jets shared between both bathing suites. Ren had insisted on it, and Hux still felt guilty about having such an indulgence on a Star Destroyer. To justify the installation, he used it quite often, most of the time with Ren.

As he approached the large double-durasteel doors, Hux worked himself up to a fury, though one that was tempered by a kind of triumph. This was the end. Ren would be here, and Hux could eviscerate him and then find out what all this was about. Ren would explain, and unload whatever petty grievance had caused this. Was it the fight they’d had in the cave? Probably. Hux shouldn’t have said those things, but Ren knew him well enough to understand that Hux was aware he’d crossed a line. And besides, Ren had cornered him.

As he began keying his security clearance into the door panel, he pictured the scene in his mind - The gym smell of the room, which Hux could not eliminate no matter how many cleaning droids he sent through. Ren, barechested, going through his saber forms at this time of day. He’d have worked up a sweat by now, and his hair would be hanging in wet curls, sweat running down his neck and back, catching in the low light that Ren insisted on. If he was in enough of a mood to pull this kind of elaborate ship-wide stunt, there would likely be some equipment casualties, various battle droids and sim pods sparking on the floor in pieces, which would be collected and reassembled on Hux’s order-

He stopped, dimly aware that his personal security code had failed twice. He frowned. He’d thought he’d somehow mistyped it the first time, but was sure he’d entered it correctly the second time. He entered it very carefully a third time, only to be greeted with a pending system lockout message, a call for security Troopers.

Pausing with his hand over the pad, his thoughts ground to a halt. Then, as if he was watching someone else do it, he observed his left hand drifting to his breast pocket, taking out one of his security cylinders, and scanning that instead.

The doors slid smoothly open, even though they shouldn’t have. They weren’t on the general security circuit. They weren’t keyed to his cylinder. He was still thinking of that, still watching everything as if from a distance, so it took a moment to see that the space was not, in fact, a cavernous empty gymnasium, poorly-lit and containing only Ren and his lightsaber. The room instead contained the three-story armor fabrication plant, the giant machinery standing dark and dormant, the only light falling on a group of consoles just inside the door, in a small command area.

His personal codes had failed because this was not a personal recreation area. This was a secure manufacturing area.

Hux stood, lips slightly parted, staring into the darkness of the third level of machinery. Dimly, he heard the security doors beginning to chime, indicating that he needed to step through to make the area secure again. However, the warning chime was nothing compared to the clamor of his thoughts, desperately trying to make sense of this. The expense. The time investment. The _impossibility_  of all this machinery being requisitioned, shipped, received, and installed without his notice.

He stepped through the door, and the chime ceased, though the buzzing static in his head grew louder, the ache in the back of his mind more persistent. The ache formed around an absence, something that was missing and was increasingly filling him with dread.

“Sir!” In the command area, two Sergeants and a five-Trooper security detail were clustered around a console. They all stood abruptly from what appeared to be some sort of card game, saluting, the pair of officers looking uneasy. Hux blinked at them stupidly for a moment, wondering why they were here instead of his hot tub.

“What is this,” he asked sharply, gesturing to the room, a voice inside screaming that he needed to play along, to not _make a scene_. But he couldn’t. He suddenly needed to use that tub very, very badly, and neither the tub nor Ren seemed to exist.

“Sir?” one of the officers managed haltingly, gazing back up to the machinery as if searching for the flaw that the General had come to see to personally.

“We’ve received no orders,” the other officer filled in more helpfully, interpreting Hux’s implied displeasure as some sort of communication failure. Hux nearly laughed, because it _was_  that, in some sense. The entire ship was somehow failing to communicate with him this morning. Presumably because they had already communicated with Ren.

“Where are Kylo Ren’s training quarters?” Hux tried, regretting the question as soon as it left his mouth.

Now even the Trooper’s careful attention postures were beginning to relax and waver, and Hux’s lip curled at their concern.

“Kylo Ren?” The officer that had been searching the room for defects turned back around, still confused, apparently unable to do anything but parrot questions back. Hux wanted to execute him on the spot. His memory helpfully supplied his name: Kerran, cadet class of 27.

“We received no orders from Kylo Ren,” replied the other officer, apparently bypassing the part of the question that didn’t make sense to her. This was Ely, cadet class of 24. Hux vaguely remembered shaking her hand, she had been top of the class. Why was she posted here? His mind began to wander down that more concrete, rewarding path of inquiry rather than why there was a dark fabrication plant in his gym.

Apparently he had contemplated this for too long, staring at the woman, and she shifted, growing more visibly agitated.

“Sir. Do we need to begin preparations to run production? Are we getting another unit of Troopers?”

She grew more hopeful at this, and the other seven stood more attentively, obviously hoping for confirmation.

Hux managed to master his thoughts, finally shaming himself into hiding his shock and panic and doing something that at least looked sensible. He feigned annoyance as he brought out his datapad.

“When was the last time this plant ran production, Sergeant?”

“Forty-two cycles ago, General. The last time we received a unit of Trooper recruits.”

Her reply indicated that the answer was obvious. Hux’s hand paused over his datapad, and he glanced at her quickly before he could stop himself. He hoped it came across as annoyance at her insolent tone.

But her answer was nonsense to Hux. It hadn’t been forty-two cycles since they’d recruited. They received a regular transport of three hundred recruits nearly every week on the _Finalizer_  alone, more elsewhere. Refugees, rescues, the children of First Order personnel, all of whom were now trained at five different Destroyers across the fleet, to Hux’s exacting standards.

He kept this to himself, instead calling up the last Transport manifest on his datapad. He found verification for what the Sergeant had said. There were no weekly recruit transports, and the last one had indeed been forty-two cycles ago. Scrolling back through, they were similarly irregular before that, few and far between, and holding about the same number of bodies as the standard weekly transports.

“And you have been sitting here doing nothing since the last production run?” Hux asked sourly, glancing up at Ely, then back down at the datapad as he ran more numbers.

“We have been _on call_ , General,” her tone once again bordering on insubordination. “Someone has to sit here and watch the equipment. We test it every few days, guard it from the Resistance, run the regular maintenance schedule. As ordered.”

Hux glared at her, because the last part held nothing but sarcasm. She gave him a sour gaze back, clearly not happy with her posting.

“It must be taxing, Sergeant.”

“Until the day you order production of a Trooper armor stockpile in the event of a sudden influx of recruits, here we sit.”

Hux tapped his datapad to bring up more reports. The production thresholds indicated that these facilities not only existed, but that they were exactly as the Sergeant indicated - they were only run for a week’s time, to manufacture armor whenever a Trooper transport arrived. Occasional production runs were ordered to refill reserves, when armor wore out with training, action, or a number of other ways. These supplementary runs only happened once or twice in a standard galactic year.

His hands began to shake, and he maintained the edge to his words as he spoke to the insolent Sergeant.

“There are no new transports arriving.” He stopped, waiting for something sharp to come to him, some reason he would be checking in here, in Ren’s gym. Which wasn’t Ren’s gym, just an empty fabrication plant.

Nothing came to him.

“As you were.”

And with that, he turned and dismissed them, not wanting to see their reactions, and used his cylinder to exit the room.

He glanced around the hallway. The Commander’s Health Suite was in the manufacturing area of the _Finalizer_. Between shifts, the hallways were nearly empty, but there were still a handful of people seeing to tasks, enough that he could not take the private moment he so badly needed. A few petty officers were already looking curiously at him, as if his presence was unusual. It was. Hux had officers to check manufacturing and production for him, and he only appeared if there was something big happening. Or if he wanted to exercise or talk to Ren in a room that did not exist.

He managed to keep his steps steady as he made his way back to the transport, his mind going almost numb with the low static hum buzzing in his head that seemed to increase along with his anxiety and fear. He stood, not allowing himself to think, simply falling into that hum, until the transport arrived. Deciding his reputation was shot for the day, he ordered everyone off so he could have the car to himself.

Then he allowed himself to think.

The fabrication plant was too elaborate for a spur-of-the-moment tantrum. Everything about this was too elaborate, though he wouldn’t put it past Ren to brainwash everyone on the ship. But such a task would be difficult and time-consuming. From what Hux understood of Ren’s mind control powers, it took time to work on an individual. To exert his will on all ninety thousand souls aboard was… more of an undertaking than Hux would have believed Ren’s temper able to withstand. Unless Ren had somehow been able to wave his hand and make it happen. Hux had yet to see such a display of power, but Ren was always full of surprises.

But the fabrication plant was more disturbing than that. Not only would it have taken some time to bring in and build all that equipment, but…

The report forging. Ren wouldn’t know how to do that. Hux brought his datapad back out and looked through the transport records, the production logs, and even the profit and loss predictions on recruitment, production, storage, wear and tear, and other minute figures.

All of it was accurate. Down to the last figure. Every single figure Hux could think to pull up supported this fantasy he was seeing with his own eyes.

Ren wouldn’t know the data for this kind of deception, nor could he possibly predict how many different reports and figures Hux would check to verify the authenticity. He could have had another officer help him with it… but who would do that? To what end? Who else would know what Hux would look for in the data? Another one of the Generals? One of the Colonels? They would all be terrified of Ren, but might do something like this in order to overthrow Hux’s authority.

Colonel Kor Bariss might, if Ren approached her. Bariss could fabricate this, and would likely jump at the chance. And Bariss would tolerate Ren for the sake of bringing Hux down once and for all, in a permanent way that would likely lead to Hux being re-conditioned if he wasn’t very careful about what he said and how he investigated this.

Yes. Bariss might do this, and she would be one of the few who would tolerate Ren and his whims for the sake of a power grab. But the reverse wasn’t true. Ren hated Kor, and Hux had stopped Ren from executing her on more than one occasion. Bariss was too good an officer to sacrifice to Ren’s temper, though Ren was right to distrust her motives.

Hux closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall of the transport. There was a part of this he was avoiding, something he was refusing to see, because if it were true, then the whole situation was even worse. But it was there, taunting him whenever he tried to find sense in Ren doing this.

He wanted to blame Ren. But in the deepest and most logical part of his mind, Hux knew Ren would never do this to him, couldn’t do it by himself and wouldn’t do it with someone else. Ren was many things, but he was ultimately fiercely loyal, almost as zealously as Hux. Just as Hux would never do anything to oust Ren from whatever it was he enjoyed about his position, Ren would never collaborate with someone else to replace Hux in the First Order. Not even Snoke. Ren would die before he betrayed Hux to Snoke.

_Because our lives are bound._

But that was ridiculous. He couldn’t think about Ren anymore. Not right now, anyway.

He distracted himself with Sergeant Ely. This was a sane avenue of inquiry, a marginal distraction, and there was some incident involving her that Hux was forgetting.

She had been top of her class at the Officer’s academy, and one of the most promising young officers in the army. Hux recalled choosing her personally to staff the _Finalizer_  as… yes, she had been a hand-to-hand tactical specialist.

Scrolling further through her record, Hux found what he was looking for: she’d shot her Commanding Officer in the back during combat training one day, a Major Teal. Pulling up his record, Hux found him to be an Imperial leftover, someone who’d crawled through Wild Space to find them, then had thrown his considerable ancient weight around to get what he wanted. In other words, a friend of Brendol’s.

He’d been incompetent, making mistake after mistake that he managed to convincingly pin on his subordinates. Hux scrolled through the various incidents that Major Teal had been indirectly involved with, right up until the day he’d been shot. He’d apparently put two Trooper trainees with mismatched experience levels at an Placement and Advancement Evaluation. Hux frowned. This was gross negligence, and usually resulted in the death of one of the Trooper cadets, as competition for these spots tended to be deadly.

He remembered now. Ely had shot Teal in the back, rather than lose one of the Troopers. Hux had been delighted by the execution, as Teal had been a blight on the First Order for years, just not enough of an active impediment for Hux to have bothered with. Yet. It looked bad to execute too many of the old Imperials at once, and Hux had been going about it slowly over the years, through various ‘accidents’ that he suspected had yet to stand out in any major way. They were all old, after all. Accidents happened.

Ely had done himself and the Order a favor, but there was nothing Hux could do about the blatant insubordination. She’d done it in front of the Placement and Advancement Evaluation Board, so he couldn’t spin it, erase it, or otherwise alter it to make her come out favorably. He’d had to remove her from her position, to…

Yes. He’d put her in charge of maintaining the weapons tech. On record, this was little more than keeping the weapons in storage warmed up on a regular maintenance schedule, to make sure they wouldn’t malfunction when used. But he’d had her do it with a rotating unit of Stormtroopers, to make sure her hand-to-hand tactics didn’t go to waste.

No such position appeared to exist. Ely’s record reflected the execution of her Commanding Officer, just as Hux remembered it, but she’d been stationed to the inactive production facilities instead. When Hux brought up more of the elaborately doctored records, he saw far less weapons in storage than the _Finalizer_  held. Only an eighth of the number. Ensuring that they were operational would have been a simple monthly duty for the maintenance staff.

He cleared the screen of his datapad and closed his eyes again, allowing himself to slump back in the seat of the transport. It had slowed and stopped, but because he’d used his security clearance to keep it private, the doors wouldn’t open, nor would the transport advance without additional instructions from him.

The humming in his head wouldn’t stop. It increased, along with the dissonance between his own certainty and the evidence of his eyes and ears. Regardless of Ren’s role in this, Hux still felt that finding him would explain everything. There were a few more places he could check for Ren. He obviously wasn’t on Ventu, since they were nowhere near that planet.  He had to be onboard.

Hux’s hand crept up to his chest, to where his ID tags hung hidden against his skin. A sudden, rather horrible thought struck him. He clenched his hand, and then dropped it.

No. This had to be some elaborate plan of Ren’s. What else could it be? Perhaps Ren altered his memories? Was he somehow, even now, directing him through some sort of nightmare vision?

Ren had never directly manipulated his thoughts like this. As far as Hux knew, he’d never seen evidence Ren _could_  do this. But it still made more sense than… anything else. That Ren had thought to doctor all the files, that Ren had taken the time to alter entire rooms and the memory of every soul aboard the _Finalizer_. That Ren would collaborate with someone else to betray him. None of that made sense.

The transport had arrived at the starboard residential area, which contained Ren’s Commander suite. Ren had his own personal rooms, but never used them. He sometimes retreated to sulk there, if they were in the middle of a disagreement.

Hux stood and went to the door of the transport, but froze with his hand partially to the panel. Panic swept through him, the certainty that this Commander’s suite was, somehow, not Ren’s.

He didn’t want to confront that possibility just now. So he entered a new destination for the transport, the Trooper Training Facilities, where Ren might be more likely to spend his time.

 

* * *

 

 

Hux disembarked in one of the active simulation rooms. It was on a level that Ren had retrofitted to his particular needs, combining three of the large sim rooms to make more space, and to run more than one sim at once with the unit of Stormtroopers he was often training with.

It was, of course, back to being three individual training rooms. Hux entered a dark observation booth in the centermost room, one broad wall taken up by durasteel windows showing an overlay of the holosim that the Troopers were currently working with. There were several duty consoles scattered throughout, along with Officers standing to observe at the windows. The Officers merely glanced at him when he arrived, then went back to the consoles. The General was much more likely to be in this area of the ship, his presence less strange.

He composed questions in his head as he observed the Troopers. He was done looking like a fool today, so his questions needed to skirt the Ren issues while still seeming to address real concerns.

But he frowned as he watched the sim, slowly taking in what he was seeing. It was several years out of date, an old simulation of Lannik, meant to train for group defense. They’d since conquered Nyalta and Selvort, and updated their tactics appropriately with superior strategies from those insurgent forces. He saw several holes in the defenses, and turned sharply to the interior of the dark room.

Captain Phasma was standing at the other end in full chrome armor, blaster balanced between her feet, watching the sim silently. As expected.

“Captain,” he called, and her helmet turned toward him. He could see the distorted reflection of his pale face and red hair from across the room. He realized he had left his command cap on the transport. That was unlike him, and it threw him suddenly off-balance.

He hated speaking to her unnecessarily. Phasma was an apex predator, one of the most dangerous creatures on board the _Finalizer_ , second only to Ren himself. Hux was extremely careful how he handled her. He showed no weakness.

This would be a delicate conversation.

“May I speak to you in private?”

Phasma inclined her head, and followed Hux out to a small conference room across from the sim facilities, usually used for one-on-one analysis with the Troopers.

When the door closed behind them, Hux turned to speak, indicating that this would not be a seated conversation.

“First, I’d like to know if you’ve seen Kylo Ren today.”

Phasma’s helmet tipped to the side, and Hux watched himself in the front of it as Phasma considered her response.

“I have seen no Officer or Trooper by the name of Kylo Ren, today or any other day.”

Hux nodded, and once again clenched his hands to stop himself from shaking. Phasma wasn’t the kind of weak-minded individual that Ren could manipulate. Neither was Hux. But Phasma would not be party to a deception like this. Phasma was much more likely to simply shoot Hux where he stood and space his remains if she stood to benefit from it, rather than acting in some convoluted plan. He had no doubts she would do it here, in this room, if the situation was in her favor. Which was why he normally went to great lengths not to be alone with her. He kept his hands steady, clenched behind his back and away from his blaster, despite her rifle still being held at parade rest.

Phasma would have actively resisted Ren if he’d tried to manipulate her mind, and neither would have come out of that confrontation unscathed. But as far as he could see, Phasma was fine. So either she was lying to him, or she had somehow defeated Ren and hidden the evidence of their struggle. 

Phasma could and did lie to him, and she might defeat Ren in a moment of weakness. But there was no benefit to her doing so. Phasma seemed to have no interest in overall strategy, just in developing battle sims and field work. She would never seize power, and would continue to function well as the ruthless commander of the Stormtroopers, as long as Hux made it clear that there was nothing better available.

It was, in fact, how he had convinced her to murder his father and follow his own orders instead. Hux never forgot her willingness to do so, when the opportunity presented itself.

His response was only a second late in coming. “Very well. I will alert you to his presence when he is available to share his insights.” Hux lied smoothly, then continuing with his careful questioning. “How old is the sim that the Troopers were running just now?”

“Seven years,” Phasma answered without hesitation. “It was built on the data from the invasion of Palesia.”

“Yes, I recall. Particularly to test group defense in a situation where we fight against a high number of unarmed or poorly armed opponents.”

“Indeed.”

He paused again, unsure how to phrase the criticism, alone in a room with Phasma. “How have you observed the scores on the sim over time?”

“Steady, General. We’re consistent with the scores. We make sure every Trooper can complete it perfectly, of course.”

Of course. It was how all their training sims were run. But this one…

“Have you observed any… flaws with the technique over the years?”

“Flaws.” Phasma shifted slightly. “No. Have you found a way to update it?”

“I have,” Hux answered easily. It was such an old sim that Hux could demonstrate the flaws in the defense himself, something he never did for an audience. “But before we move on to that, can you tell me your opinion on the more recent updates to the sim program?” He paused, knowing that this was an unusual question, and scrambling to come up with a reason he was asking it. “Frankly, of course. As I said, I’ve been considering re-evaluating some of the older programs.”

Phasma paused to consider, standing silently. As always, Hux found any conversation with her that he didn’t control with an iron fist unnerving. And he was unable to predict her reactions, her subtle shifts in opinion.

“They are all functioning as expected. The newest we’ve added from Great Peygo was a good way to replace the older routines from Noor-Hall, showing us many flaws in our strategies that we are still attempting to train out. I would say the same of the Rostan sims as well, in relation to the older Jen sims and our previous strategies related to uses for personal shielding.”

Hux fought to keep his expression under control. The two newest sims she’d mentioned were at least five years old, their techniques far out of date. He resisted the urge to pull out his datapad to verify through the system. He’d found that to be rather fruitless today.

He didn’t understand, though. They always added new conquests to the system, were always adding data to tweak their strategies, train their troopers, update their simulations. It was what made Hux’s program better than his father’s. He wasn’t content to rest in the old ways and call them good enough.

So what, exactly, was this? It undermined everything he’d worked so hard for. He saw those Troopers reacting. It wasn’t just playacting, and it wasn’t anything Ren had done to the surface of their minds. When they trained the Troopers, it was deeply ingrained. They had all been conditioned, again and again, to defend against the kind of holes in their defense that Hux spotted. For them to feign that kind of ignorance so smoothly, in a single room of the _Finalizer_  that Hux just happened to walk into, was inconceivable. They just wouldn’t. They _couldn't_. Hux had tested them on this point again and again for decades.

Sure to keep his voice steady, he commented on Phasma’s observations. “So you find the newer material to be the most helpful.”

She hesitated before she answered, and Hux could sense her scenting his weakness, probing the situation for what was wrong. “Of course. We go to great pains to gather that information whenever we assimilate a new planet. It is always a boon to the program.”

“Yes. It’s been my… goal to keep the program updated like that, over the years. Of course.”

“We’ve talked about this before.”

Hux could feel the sweat gathering below his collar. He needed to do something drastic to get this conversation back under his control.

“I feel the progress isn’t as rapid as I like lately. If I show you what I perceive as the flaws in the program, will you have the sims adjusted to correct them?”

“Of course, General.”

“Then follow me.” Hux brushed past her out into the hallway, a deliberate move to lead her into the next room. Still, he could feel the chill of her armor through the sleeves of both tunic and coat, and he stifled a shiver.

He went back to the sim observation room and watched for several more minutes, growing more angry with the flaws he was observing. It was intolerable. After a time, he couldn’t stand to watch anymore.

“Captain. Go in and begin a Gerralti defense. Set your rifle to stun. Tuck and roll when the Troopers begin returning fire, then aim upward, fire intermittent and in a fan pattern. Sweep up, then down at their legs.”

He hadn’t turned from the observation window as he’d barked the order. The whole room went silent, the cool dark air thrumming with the small chimes of electronics and the low humming in Hux’s head. He could sense all eyes turning to look at him. He continued to stare resolutely out the observation window, not wanting to look at them. He knew what this looked like. Perhaps it was flattering, in a way. At best, from their perspective, it was nonsensical.

Then again, this was not a day for sense.

He heard Phasma leave the room, the swish of the doors and her heavy tread in the hallway. It was a relief. He was not sure what he could have said if she’d questioned his orders, asked where they’d come from.

He watched as the holoprojection cut out, replaced by Captain Phasma in her imposing chrome armor. She did as Hux ordered, stunning every single one of the Troopers to the ground. After the last soldier fell, she stood, looking through the observation window.

Hux turned on his heel and left without speaking to anyone, the humming in his ears nearly deafening. He did not wish to discuss the matter further, no matter what it would look like to Phasma. She and the technicians could take matters from there.


	2. Part One: Equitan - Chapter 2

**One Day Ago**

 

“Hux. Just admit you don’t have anything better to do than escort duty.”

They were walking down the dusty dirt path between the shuttle landing pad and the village of Ak’dar, which appeared to consist of low rough huts held together with vines. Hux didn’t often come planetside, and he disliked wasting his time in locations such as this, which were so primitive they weren’t even worth recruiting from. It was also hot.

Ren wasn’t wrong, but Hux wasn’t about to say so. He turned to scowl at Ren, met with the familiar sight of his battered helmet. Ren rarely removed it since he’d sustained his injuries on Starkiller, even in the privacy of their rooms.

“Do you suppose these primitives are going to be comfortable speaking to your helmeted face, your droid, and your Trooper escort? Or were you planning on taking off your helmet and giving them something to stare at?”

It was akin to returning Ren’s slap with a gutshot, though he couldn’t stop his impulse to say it once it came into his head. He braced himself for the force of Ren’s fury and anxiety coiling through his thoughts. But Ren didn’t respond, merely turning his helmet to glance at Hux, then facing forward. Hux had no read on his emotions at all, which was unusual. Normally Ren’s feelings were broadcast freely and intrusively directly into Hux’s head.

The non-response was somehow more infuriating than a tantrum would have been, and Hux bristled. “I don’t know why you think it’s a waste of my time to stay involved, especially in anything having to do with you. I’m simply running damage control. We both know how childish you are when someone tries to tell you no.”

Ren didn’t respond right away, but increased his walking speed incrementally. Ren had a long, loping gait that Hux found excessive. His own pace was slower, more presentable and less predatory. Annoyed, he increased his own walking speed, struggling to keep his breathing under control so Ren wouldn't have the satisfaction of watching him exert himself.

Ren, of course, wasn’t showing any signs of fatigue, even in the oppressive heat. The battered helmet once again swiveled to regard him, and then back. “It’s a waste of your time, General, because you have entire units of officers that you’ve educated and conditioned to do your negotiating for you. Shouldn’t you be off planning a war?”

The ‘planning a war’ bit was uncharacteristically subtle for Ren. Rather than upsetting Hux, he was almost proud of Ren for the barb. It was a suitable sally after the earlier comment about his face.

Still. Hux would gladly take on the myriad small stresses of staging a campaign over the lack of direction he’d been struggling with for the past year. He envied Ren the purpose he perceived in these trips, even if Hux thought they were useless. Try as he might, Hux struggled to come up with new ambitions for himself. A challenge. Anything.

The fleet had begun encroaching more on the Mid-Rim, but it turned out Starkiller was far more effective than he’d imagined. Planetary governments folded at the barest hint of the First Order. Hux’s destroyers only had to show up in the vicinity, and whole systems would submit without a fight. The only thing to negotiate in the aftermath was resource management, which Hux didn’t oversee. Whatever the planets needed - food, defense, minerals, tech, medical aid - was negotiated and arranged, and the First Order took whatever resources they had in excess. Hux merely stamped his approval at the end of it all.

And Ren was correct about this being a waste of Hux's time. He had a whole program that produced negotiation specialists that were far more patient and adept than himself. He let them speak for him. He was known and recognized, but he had a habit of being, as Ren put it, ‘overbearing and zealous.’ He often had little to do with diplomacy, other than the initial comm that established contact with the First Order. Since he was the one that broadcast the message ahead of Starkiller’s destruction of Hosnian Prime, he had the pleasure of watching the heads of state visibly deflate and withdraw when they recognized him. It felt good. Powerful. Right. But once he’d sent the initial greeting, the specialist officers would take it from there. He rarely went planetside himself.

Ren knew all this. He’d seen it himself, and heard Hux gloat about it. Even if he hadn’t, he could simply pull the thoughts from Hux’s mind, as was his charming wont. But Ren didn’t know everything, and Hux liked to undermine his perceived familiarity whenever he could.

“I’m the face of the First Order, Ren. It’s me they respond to. I need to be present for this, to make sure _both_  sides behave.” He cut another glare over to Ren. “And don’t think I don’t remember what happened in Tuanul on Jakku. I need to make sure you don’t… _forget_  anything important.”

A burst of static came from Ren’s vocoder. Hux couldn’t tell if it was a scoff, a laugh, or a low growl. He still felt nothing of Ren’s emotions. Ren was being particularly pouty today. “That was a year ago. And I didn’t forget anything.”

Hux bit back ‘you forgot what you arrived there to do’, because he didn’t want to put Ren in a mood before the negotiations. Ren failing to find the map to Luke Skywalker and setting off the chain of events that destroyed Starkiller was still a sore spot, and not a subject they needed to discuss presently. Ren probably read the thoughts off him anyway, and their conversation lapsed into sullen silence. Disappointing. Riling Ren was likely the only entertainment he would get today, and Ren wasn’t rising to the bait.

This remote village of Ak’dar, on the planet Ventu, was in the middle of a hot, a dry deciduous forest in full leaf, complete with avian calls echoing through the trees. The air was thick with some sort of dusty purple pollen that made Hux shiver when he imagined breathing it in and having it coat his lungs. There was also a cloying, sweet smell wafting through the air, presumably from whatever flower was generating the pollen. Hux looked around and saw nothing that was obviously in bloom, just rays of sunlight cutting through the thick canopy and catching in visible columns on the dust in the air.

He glanced over his shoulder to see their Stormtrooper escort dusted a faint pale purple, rifles held out and ready over their chests. Hux had given the order for more aggressive protocol for this escort. In an unknown situation like this, Hux liked to have the upper hand as much as possible.

He faced forward again, envying Ren and the rest for the atmospheric filters in their helmets. He’d taken anti-allergen pills before embarking, but sometimes it wasn’t enough. Just because the atmosphere was breathable didn’t mean he should be down here breathing it.

Being planetside still felt highly unnatural for Hux. The sun was blocked out through the thick leafy canopy, and he was wearing his command cap, but he was already sweating profusely under the cap and the coat he refused to remove, and he always worried about sunburn on his face making him look ridiculous. Aside from Starkiller and his post-academy posting on Laymar, he’d rarely been to the surface of any planet since he’d left Arkanis as a boy. He concentrated on a steady step, hating the give of the soft dirt path below his boots, the way the red dust was making a mess out of their shine. Even the ever-present thrum of the large ship engines was absent, and Hux felt the silence through his entire body. No amount of fresh air on his face and the smell of rotting biomatter could replace the clean, orderly sterility of a spacecraft. He pictured tracking the red, muddy dust all throughout the halls of the _Finalizer_ , and shivered again.

Ren stopped short when they reached the largest of the huts, built of unprocessed logs from the forest around them, moss and parasitic plants clinging to the rotting bark of the exterior. They were greeted warily at the low open doorway by a member of the resident Varra species. The red-skinned humanoid squinted up at them through the pollen. The Varra was bald, with a flat face, snub nose, and enormous ears that twitched as it studied Ren and Hux. It was wearing only a roughspun beige cloth draped loosely around its waist. The cloth fell low in the back and was tied across the front, displaying three sets of some sort of xeno genitalia to full effect. They pulsed slightly, and Hux found himself staring. He forced his gaze away, meeting the three black eyes balanced in a straight line across the wide bridge of the being’s nose.

“I am General Hux of the First Order, and this is Kylo Ren. Commander Ren wishes to discuss…” Hux trailed off and gestured sharply to Ren. “Whatever that is. You tell him.”

Ren’s mask turned to regard him expressionlessly, though Hux didn’t need to see his face to read his incredulity. “ _Vanna-Ut._  The enlightened life-path.”

Hux rolled his eyes at Ren’s mask and turned toward the protocol droid that had toddled between them. It was silver chrome, and was already tinted a dusty purple, with red dust creeping up its legs. It would need to be decontaminated before it was allowed back on board the _Finalizer_. They all would.

The droid coughed something out at the bald Varra in whatever barking language it spoke. Hux supposed he should have tried harder, for the sake of introduction, to remember the name of the religion that Ren had been going on about. But it didn’t matter when the alien didn’t speak Basic. The droid would cover any lapses like that.

The Varra twitched one of its ears, then walked away, around the side of the hut. Hux noticed it had an elaborate pattern scarred into its bare back. After a moment, the protocol droid confirmed flatly that this was assent to their request, and Hux rolled his eyes again, huffing out a sigh and watching the purple pollen dance through the air in front of his face.

Hux followed the Varra to a clearing, a circle of logs laid out in a space just large enough for the Varra, Hux, Ren, and their escort. He glanced over at Ren, then made a gesture for the Troopers to form a perimeter. They didn’t need to be part of whatever ceremony Ren was looking for here, and the odds of these primitives having any weapons that would harm them was low. Hux could dismiss them now that it was obvious there was no immediate threat, but their presence was an important part of the way the Order presented itself, and Hux wanted to stay in control of the situation.

The Varra climbed atop one of the logs, which was a feat. The logs were nearly two meters tall, and the alien was a good half-meter shorter than Hux and Ren. Hux stood and watched it scale the rough bark of the log, then sighed as he looked over at Ren.

Ren didn’t pause or look at Hux, his fingers digging into the bark and climbing to sit next to it, leaving smudges in the purple dust accumulated in the edges of the log.

Hux hesitated a moment, then turned to the silver protocol droid. “Will you be able to hear the conversation well enough without climbing?”

“Yes, General. I will broadcast the translations at a volume audible to both humans and Varra.”

“Right.”

Done delaying, Hux eyed the bark, then made an admirable job of the climb himself. The gaps in the bark made it easy, and he was able to use his legs to support himself on the way up. He seated himself next to Ren and apart from the alien, resolving to remain silent in order to get the full effect of whatever social skills Ren still possessed.

Ren left his helmet on as he began the conversation with the Varra. “What is your name and position in the Cult of Vanna-Ut?”

The droid barked the translation from the ground, and the Varra watched it. He barked some reply back, which the droid yelled awkwardly through the air.

“My name is Urr-bo-gorra. I am the High Priest of The Way.”

“And what is The Way?”

“The Way is the path to acknowledging the place of all living things and the influence each life has on all others. It is the enlightened life-path.”

Ren paused, seemed to digest the nonsense. He always turned into a different person whenever he talked of these local religions. Hux always forgot just how annoying that was, Ren’s singular focus and patience for these beings and their petty beliefs, when he had so little attention and patience to spare otherwise.

“How do these influences on other lives manifest?”

“All lives are tied together, each through the touch of another, through each village, and across each continent.”

“Do you believe that the influence of… The Way extends off the planet?”

The alien flapped both of its large ears. The light shone through the red cartilage. “You came from another world. But you are influencing my life, as I am influencing yours. You will leave, and influence the lives of others, and through you my life will touch theirs. All beings follow The Way.” It nodded, as if that meant anything. Hux made a show of studious interest in the conversation, but this was just more high-handed bantha shit. What influence would this little naked alien have on any life outside his backwards village? Compared to Hux, his reach was laughable.

They both went on, interminably, and Hux’s interest waned as he began imagining the purple dust sticking to the sweaty skin of his neck. At this point, neither Ren nor the alien were looking at each other, but each was having their conversation with the protocol droid that was translating for them. The breach in protocol from Ren was mortifying, something Hux would need to speak to him about later, though he should have expected as much from the little priest.

Ren’s mask was still on, and his expression was hidden. But his body language and the way he was exercising all the polite conversation skills that he claimed not to have made it obvious that Ren was finding some sort of value in whatever the alien was saying. What could Ren possibly take away from these situations? He tamped down his annoyance, though it was tempting to turn the table on Ren - begin fidgeting and make loud, rude interruptions that indicated his patience was wearing thin. Hux was better than that.

Though it was true that nearly everything about this situation was bothering him. The nonsense content of their conversation, the wasted time, the heat of the forest. He was even growing annoyed by the barking, abrasive language of the Varra.

He let his face relax into a neutral expression as the droid continued to yell up from the ground, then let his gaze stray around the sparsely populated settlement they were in. The log hut that they had approached was the largest in the area, easily six or seven times the size of the smaller buildings around it.  Hux wondered how the small beings had cut and moved the logs to build it. There was no evidence of heavy machinery or tools for that kind of work in this area. He saw a few of the red-skinned aliens walking around the paths and moving in and out of the smaller buildings, most small and still wearing the cloth around their waist. Many of them had the same designs scarred into their broad backs, though most were basic compared to the priest, some only consisting of a few lines. One held a woven basket full of a green leafy vegetable. Another was leading a five-leggged canid of some sort, its fur long and matted with both the red dust and purple pollen, long ropes of saliva trailing from its mouth. Another Varra had two sharpened sticks in its hand.

He decided, with a kind of petulant finality, that the huts were some sort of work centers, and the larger building a communal living area. Next to the village he saw a clearing full of more of the leafy green plant, presumably edible, and he saw a different type of shorter tree with a large hairy brown fruit growing underneath broad, long leaves. Looking out across the forest, he saw few of the aliens out away from the village. They didn’t appear to have vehicles, or even any sort of metal implements. Hux took that to mean that there weren’t any viable mines in the area.

Their scans had suggested as much. This continent scanned as a flat, mostly forested area with weak soil constitution. It seemed able to support a few types of hardy vegetation, and Hux would likely scrape a soil sample off his boots for further analysis, but the color indicated it might be too ferrous to support a lot of the usual crops the First Order cultivated in agricultural exchanges.

The topographical reading of the planet's surface showed three large continents with similar terrain and features, an uninhabited mountainous continent near the north pole, and a few species of nonsentient animals that supported the Varra population. There was nothing else, other than the Varra and their far-reaching religion that did not, in fact, reach outside their tiny villages.

His initial assessments had been that there was much the First Order could offer this planet, but nothing they could offer in trade. Hux enjoyed giving to planets like this, as they would always be in the Order’s debt. But it would be a waste to have the gratitude of the Varra, and there was no value in investing bodies or resources to change their lives and culture. They would leave a few crates of basics as a token of their wasted time, but likely never return. The Varra had no combat culture, or even conflicts, so they weren’t even valuable for the Trooper sims or recruitment. Hux had started a xeno division of Troopers after Starkiller, but these aliens weren’t what he had in mind. So the planet was effectively worthless after whatever it was Ren wanted to do here.

As the barking conversation continued between the high priest and the protocol droid, Hux’s mind drifted further, and he tracked one of the avians, trying to decide if they were birds of prey or not. There also seemed to be a species of large rodent that scurried across the forest floor, and he wondered if either was hunted for food, or if the avians would consume the rodent. He hoped for a show of carnage, but got nothing.

The conversation dragged, and Hux decided he could feel the grit from the pollen sticking to his forehead and temples, and he was glad again for the command cap covering his hair. He'd look ridiculous with purple dust through it. His skin crawled as he felt sweat running down his neck and into the collar of his uniform. He began to dart his gaze at Ren more frequently, doing the mental equivalent of haranguing him as loudly as he could to hurry up. Hux knew that Ren heard him, and Ren would normally respond to such petty needling, but his focus seemed unwavering for all Hux could tell through Ren’s helmet, and he could still feel nothing of Ren’s moods today. Normally this was a good sign, a show of Ren being even-tempered, but Hux wanted him disturbed so they could leave.

He decided to get more creative. With his face still a polite, sweaty mask, he began to carefully imagine himself leaning over, running a hand down Ren’s chest. It would be firm and warm below the fabric of his tunic, and Ren had to be sweating just as much as Hux. Hux imagined himself undoing the cowl, letting it flutter to the ground, and leaving Ren’s helmet on. Mentally, he undid Ren’s belt and opened his tunic, jerking it off his shoulders where it would stick tightly to his sweaty skin.  Opening the tunic would reveal his bare midriff, his short undershirt and his suspenders.

He mentally pulled one of the tight suspenders back and let it slap against Ren’s nipple. He imagined the crisp snapping sound, the shock registering through Ren’s thin undershirt. Ren jumped, in reality, and stuttered through whatever he had been saying to the alien. Hux suppressed a smirk, and then a wince as he felt a spike of pain through the back of his mind, Ren’s little form of revenge.

Hux got his own as he continued the mental debauchery, imagining himself leaning across Ren to fondle the exposed, pulsing genitals of the Varra. He was rewarded with a sharp inhale from Ren, and the edges of Ren’s frustration brushing at the back of his mind rather than the warning spike of pain. Hux began to graphically imagine exactly what the Varra would do if he leaned across-

He nearly jumped when his wrist comm crackled to life. He blinked, momentarily disoriented by the chime and vaguely aware that the Varra priest had abruptly cut itself off mid-bark. He didn’t believe he’d be able to get comms on the surface of Ventu, and he’d also set his frequency to private. Nobody should have been able to reach him for any event short of the _Finalizer_  colliding with the surface.

He let his gaze focus back on the high priest and Ren, who were both looking at him. He couldn’t read the expression on the alien’s face, nor Ren’s, though he could sense that Ren was annoyed by the interruption. Pulling the sleeve of his coat and tunic back, he tapped the comm and found the reason for the interruption, annoyed again by the pettiness.

The holo of Snoke from the waist up, wearing the obnoxious gold robes he preferred, appeared in miniature above Hux’s wrist. He heard the Varra make a strangled sound, and wondered if this was the first time such tech had been seen on the surface.

“Supreme Leader. We are in the middle of negotiations with the Varra now. Is there a pressing matter you would like us to address here?”

“General Hux. Is my apprentice with you?”

“Yes.” Hux’s eyes shifted over to Ren, who leaned in closer, letting his thigh press in against Hux’s as he crowded in to address the tiny wrist comm.

“I’m here, Supreme Leader,” Ren responded, his vocoder crackling slightly in his helmet.

“How was I to know that, Kylo Ren? You are not wearing any comm tech. I could not reach you.”

Ren paused. “I never do.”

Which was a fact. Ren rarely carried or used comm tech, and was notoriously difficult to reach on short notice. Hux normally acted as the Knight’s messenger for any stray communication, summons from Snoke and otherwise. He’d also been under the impression that Snoke had some mystical way to summon Ren as needed, though he’d never asked Ren about this. He hated the idea of Snoke being that connected to Ren.

“It’s fortunate that the General knows how to follow orders, then.”

A corner of Hux’s mouth pulled up. Snoke continually tried to play them off each other. It had never worked, though it riled Ren well enough. Hux always pretended to fall for it though, lest Snoke try a different way to divide them. Both he and Ren loathed him, and always had. Snoke wasn’t stupid, so he likely knew. Still, he persisted with these petty mind games.

But farce or not, Ren hated being scolded like this, let alone at Hux’s expense, and the mood shifts that Hux had been missing all day suddenly hit him full force, Ren’s anger and shame flowing through the back of his thoughts like a familiar caress. He glanced over, hoping the other wouldn’t lose his temper in front of the Varra.

“Supreme Leader. Is there something you wish for us to address with the population of Ak’dar?” Hux repeated his request for clarification to the interruption, hoping that it was worth their time.

“Yes General, in fact there is. Kylo Ren, are you learning anything from the Vanna-ut Priest?”

“Yes, Supreme Leader. Their beliefs are similar to the Force, in that all lives are intertwined and touch each other. They possess powerful artifacts, capable of ‘Luck’ and ‘Reckoning,’ according to the protocol droid. I would like to view them, and see if they hold power in the Force.”

“Excellent. Remove them off-planet, and then destroy all signs of life on the surface before you leave the system.”

Both Hux and Ren were silent in the wake of that order.

“Is there an issue with the connection? Did I cut out? Acknowledge please, General and Apprentice.”

“Acknowledged, Supreme Leader.”

“Why?!” Ren’s voice strained through the vocoder, and Hux could hear the anger in it. Hux saw Ren’s hands flex and creak in their gloves, and he shivered as he began to feel the more physical manifestations of Ren’s anger as pressure against his skin and in his mind.

But rather than snapping, Hux sensed that Ren was making an effort to calm himself. He visibly straightened, clasping his hands in his lap and attempting to compose himself before he continued, or before Snoke could reprimand him like a naughty child for his disobedience.

“Supreme Leader, there is no strategic value in doing so. They have nothing here. There are no aggressors. There’s not even a nearby system to observe the destruction.” He paused, and Hux all but mentally screamed the more relevant part, the thing that was practical and not an emotional appeal. Ren either read Hux’s mind or thought of it himself. “It would be a waste of time and resources. These aliens will remain on planet, scratching through the dirt, even if we take no action.”

“My apprentice. Do I need to explain myself every time I give you an order?”

Hux felt the tension from Ren again, and this time, the Varra turned to look at him, its three eyes blinking one after the other. Hux glanced quickly over, then back to the holo. He was never certain how aware others were of Ren’s moods. Apparently this mood was on the verge of turning ugly.

Hux spoke quickly, before Ren could say something stupid. “No, Supreme Leader. We understand.”

“Will you see it done?”

“Yes, Supreme Leader.”

“Thank you, General. My apprentice could perhaps learn something from your blind loyalty.”

And with that, the holo flickered and vanished.

Hux left his wrist posed in the air as his gaze moved around the half-circle of Troopers that were visible in front of him. He saw them shifting from foot to foot and looking at one another.

“Hux.” Ren pulled off his helmet, and Hux saw that his eyes held the barely-concealed mania that always seemed to follow Ren’s conversations with Snoke. That look was usually followed by a wave of anger, or some other physical release from Ren. Frequently Hux could bed him to calm him down, something they'd always done after Snoke's sessions, but there was no way to do that here. Ren was upset, and there was little Hux could do to mitigate it in the moment.

“We can’t do what Snoke is asking.”

“We can. Our turbolasers are more than capable if we move in close enough,” Hux replied idly, trying to downplay the senselessness of the action, pulling his sleeve back over the wrist comm and shifting to a more relaxed position on the log.

“ _Don’t_. I know you don’t want to. Why did you agree with it?”

“ _Ren_. Perhaps you are unaware of what the Supreme Leader is capable of if we disagree with him?”

Ren’s lips thinned. “It’s senseless.”

“It’s what we were ordered to do.”

“Then he was right,” Ren replied angrily, pulling his helmet back on. “You’re only good for blindly following orders.”

This stung, and Hux turned to look at him. “No Ren, I’m also good at choosing my battles. _Planning a war_ , as you so eloquently put it earlier. This is neither the time nor the place.” He paused, then feigned ease again. “You’re the one apprenticed to a man who orders the death of an entire race over a comm, as one of the members watches and doesn’t understand. That would imply that your values are at least somewhat similar to his.”

This was unfair, and Hux knew it. But there was also truth in it, and Hux was a surgeon when it came to eviscerating Ren like this. Ren’s hands were resting on the log, and Hux saw his fingers curl into the bark, the wood creaking below his grip. When Ren said nothing, Hux attempted to move past the moment.

“Ren. Ask about the artifacts you mentioned. Can we see them?”

Ren’s voice came back through the vocoder, thin and angry, and his head turned back to the protocol droid. “Where are your artifacts stored?”

“No, belay that,” Hux yelled down, then turned toward the alien, not able to bear the breach in protocol, even hot and angry and frustrated as he was.

“Our apologies for the interruption, there was a message from our… elder. He sends his regards, and is also interested in your religion, your… Vanna-ut, your Way. Please continue your conversation with Kylo Ren.”

He gestured to Ren as the alien’s gaze moved from Hux back to the protocol droid as it barked out the translation.

The bare minimum of niceties complete, Hux lapsed back into his thoughts as Kylo Ren angrily continued his talk with the priest.

Snoke was growing increasingly bloody-minded and erratic. And irrelevant. He more frequently ordered planets completely deported, their resources exploited and stolen, relationships and trust with cartels and smugglers broken. His attention was spotty and fickle though, and Hux was occasionally able to turn these orders into something else. He hated such senseless violence and destruction. It was a waste of resources, and burned through badly-needed goodwill when the First Order was so desperate to expand its influence.

He thought about the Hosnian system again, as he did nearly every day since giving that speech. There had been no doubt in his mind that a grand gesture was necessary, and that the Republic was an absolute blight on the galaxy. The fastest way to rid its influence was to obliterate it at the source, and thus Hosnian Prime had to go. No war, no backlash. It had worked. It had been necessary. All that life, all that wealth, all that tech and knowledge and everything that sat at the center of the galaxy had to go. Had they made any move to evacuate, to remove anything from the surface, had there been any sign at all of what they were about to do, the government would have escaped. Those close to the government would have escaped. They would have been chasing the remnants across the galaxy as they agitated systems and gathered support.

No. Hux told himself every day, since he’d brought that particular theory to fruition, that destroying Hosnian Prime had been the only choice. The evidence of their easy transition bore that out, and the balancing act of rolling further into the Mid-Rim and exporting supplies to Wild Space soothed him.

But the other four planets in the Hosnian system. There had been no need to destroy them as well, other than a show of what Starkiller could do. Snoke had insisted. And so the galaxy had seen that Starkiller could blow up five planets at once, and uncounted resources were lost and billions of people had died for the glorification of a weapon that had outlived them by less than a day.

It was what Starkiller was for. It had worked. Lives in the Outer Rim were measurably better already, so many more than had been sacrificed that day. It had been worth it, in order to move the Republican resources to the places where the Republic would never go, to help all those beings that the Republic condemned with their bureaucracy. But it would have worked without the other four planets. That had been senseless.

Hux hadn’t tried hard to go against Snoke’s order then, just as he hadn’t argued today. There was no point. Snoke was not a rational being. Hux would need to determine how to deal with him, and soon. His gaze turned to Ren again, who was still gripping the bark of the log, his shoulders hunched, his muscles bunched and tense. His anger was still broadcast clearly through the back of Hux’s mind.

Hux sighed. Again. But he let it go this time, his mind sliding sideways into practical matters, imagining yet again who could possibly stop their advance to the center of the galaxy. Hutt space might be a challenge, and possibly Black Sun and Crymorah, the larger syndicates had influence and power enough to be a problem. But they’d long ago established relationships with all of them for this very reason. They could probably keep that particular facet of black market commerce regulated, though-

“ _General_.”

Hux blinked, and looked over at Ren’s mask. “Knight.”

“We were just discussing going to the underground temple where ‘Luck’ and ‘Reckoning’ are held.”

“Fine. Let’s go.”

Ren tipped his head. “The priest and I will go. The viewing is a solitary activity, meant for self-reflection.”

As Ren spoke, the priest slid off the log and landed agilely on the ground in a cloud of red dust, its ears and genitals flapping ostentatiously. Hux looked back to Ren.

“Is the theft also a solitary activity, or would you like help with that?”

“I’m sure I can manage.” Without waiting for a response, Ren slid nimbly off the log and landed next to the priest. He turned to the protocol droid and spoke. “I am ready for the journey. Lead me.”

“ _Wait_ , Ren.” Hux did his best to slide off the log, and managed not to make a fool of himself. He attempted to brush himself off once he landed, but it was hopeless. His uniform was an absolute wreck, with red dust creeping up his boots and onto his pants, purple pollen collecting in the creases at elbow and in the folds of his glove, and several snags where the bark had caught the gaberwool. Irritating. He straightened his hat, resisting the urge to wipe the sweat from his forehead with his filthy gloves, then turned to address Ren.

“I’m coming with you.”

“The ritual is solitary. Two people can’t go. And besides, what are you going to do there?”

“What do you mean? We’re going to steal those artifacts.”

“I’m going to examine them first, and use them for their intended purpose.”

Hux gave Ren a withering look. “How long can that possibly take?”

“Significantly longer, General, if you are breathing down my neck with-” he cut himself off before alluding to what Hux had been doing to distract him. Hux allowed himself a brief smirk. Ren exhaled loudly in his mask, and continued.

“Just leave matters of a spiritual nature to me.” He waved his hand through the air, Hux assumed to indicate the fabric of existence, or whatever Ren thought he was talking about here.

“ _Spiritual_ ,” Hux managed, putting the full weight of his disdain behind the word. This place was the polar opposite of whatever generated Ren’s powers. Certainly Ren had to realize that.

“I can trust you with… _spiritual_  concerns,” Hux began, making it clear that Hux thought this was a waste of time, just in case Ren wasn’t currently reading his mind, or had forgotten the numerous conversations they’d had on more philosophical subjects. “But I think we can both agree that you lose focus when you are in the midst of whatever it is you do. I’m coming in order to figure out how to actually complete the mission. Steal the artifacts, as Snoke ordered.”

Ren bunched his fists at his sides, and Hux felt his anger coiling through his mind again. “I can _steal them myself_ ,” he managed through the vocoder, which popped and hissed as Ren’s voice got low and fast.

“I had no idea you were a logistical genius all this time,” Hux returned, taking a step closer to get in Ren’s space. Ren didn’t give, but he was growing more frustrated. “What if they are too large to simply slip in your pocket?”

“Then we’ll come back later and get them.”

Hux shook his head. “And that’s not your area of expertise, is it?”

“ _Hux_ ,” he ground out, and Hux watched his shoulders hunch, saw him take one threatening step closer so that they were standing toe to toe. “It’s not yours either! You’ll just order one of your lieutenants to do it!” He gestured with one hand to the forest. “What are you even doing here! You don’t care about any of this, you don’t care-” He shook his head. “Nevermind,” he muttered darkly.

Hux blithely pressed his argument. “If I go, I’ll know it’s done.”

Ren shook his head again, looking back over to the priest. “I’m not a child. I can steal something from the surface of the planet. It’s not hard. You know I can take whatever I want. I don’t need your staff for that.”

Hux was growing more genuinely angry at Ren’s resistance. It was a stupid thing to argue about, and this really wasn’t the time. “You certainly act like a child,” he hissed. “Your record for object recovery is dismal. In fact, you might be the _last_  person I trust with such a task. No one else has failed badly enough to _destroy an entire planet_.”

Ren leaned forward, and Hux could feel him growing dangerously close, the familiar threatening chokehold of his mind in Hux’s, the sensation of his Force powers pressing in. He curled his lip. This had long ago stopped being intimidating.

“Hux, these artifacts mean nothing to anyone but me. _Let me handle it._ ”

Hux clenched his jaw, furious that they had to do this so publicly. Hux could usually brush Ren off, play it as if Ren was being unreasonable in front of his officers, but that was on his ship, where everything was under his control. Now they were on a planet, and it was hot, and Hux had no clue what the fucking artifacts even did. He could think of no rebuttal.

Ren, sensing Hux’s weakness, clapped him on the shoulder, then turned to walk away, gesturing with one hand as he continued to speak dismissively, as if he’d _won the argument_. “I need to do this by myself. It’s a meditation. I don’t want you around for it. It’s not _your area of expertise_.”

Something about the implication that Hux was useless in spiritual matters set him off, along with the casual, dismissive shoulder pat. It was infuriatingly condescending, the kind of thing one of the old Imperial instructors would have done. Hux never let anyone touch him so casually, even Ren. He turned to the ring of Stormtroopers, incensed that they had seen that humiliating display.

“Fall back to the shuttle,” he barked. “Await orders. We will be…” He turned and glanced at Ren, then turned back. “At least another ninety standard minutes. I’ll turn on a tracker. Follow us or send a comm if you haven’t heard from us by then.”

The Stormtroopers saluted in unison, and Hux watched the entire unit disappear into the forest, through the village. Several of the aliens stood to watch them. One of the small Varra ran a hand across a Trooper’s pauldron as they passed, leaving a smear of purple dust on the armor. Hux shivered.

“What are you doing?” Ren demanded, voice growing louder as he gestured petulantly at the retreating Troopers. “They should stand guard outside the cave! I’ll need some of them!”

“You’re safe enough, aren’t you? Scared of these aliens and their sticks against your lightsaber and _mastery_  of your powers?” Hux cocked an eyebrow and crossed his arms. “It has been awhile since you’ve been to Snoke for training, I suppose. Maybe you’ve grown soft.”

“ _Hux_.” And this time, Hux heard the danger in it. Only Hux’s certainty that Ren would never harm him kept him rooted to the spot. Hux was used to pushing him. There were many things Ren could do to him. He could physically beat him in a fight. He could use his lightsaber or his powers to open Hux to organs and bone. He could knock Hux out, either with a thought or with his fist. He could make Hux forget why he was here, or compel him to go back to the ship. Many of these things wouldn’t even necessarily do long-term damage, and Ren was more than capable.

But he wouldn’t. Hux would always win that bet. He sneered again, leaving his arms crossed, and he met Ren’s eyes through his visor the best he could. “I’m coming, Ren.”

There was a moment of tension, and he sensed Ren’s frustration, sensed that Ren was near a breaking point. Surprisingly, Ren was trying to calm himself, and Ren was pushed far enough into his head that he could feel Ren make the decision to brush Hux off, to take the decision out of his hands. It was laughable. Ren never could.

“No, you’re not coming. Go with them. Or in five seconds, you won’t have a choice in the matter.”

Hux rolled his eyes at the empty threat. He opened his mouth to simply give the order, which Ren would obey, but Hux would pay for it later in some form of petty revenge. Then he closed it. Ren wasn’t responding well to aggression today, and the situation wasn’t one where Hux could definitively gain the upper hand. He shifted his stance, moving his arms behind his back and softening his expression slightly.

“Just let me come, Ren.” Hux stepped closer, dropping his voice. “I’ll be silent. You won’t know I’m there.”

That, as it turned out, was the key to this particular conversation. He saw Ren pause, saw the tension drop fractionally out of his shoulders. So he continued, giving Ren the kind of compliments he was always vulnerable to.

“I want to see you do this. You’re right. It’s what you excel at, and I enjoy watching you at your best.”

The Knight took a step back, and Hux kept the smirk from his face, congratulating himself. Ren was laughably susceptible to praise, though Hux rarely gave it, preferring keeping him cowed in other ways. He could feel a vague overwhelming feeling pressing in on him from Ren, and knew he had played him just right.

He stepped back, gesturing to the priest and about to ask if they could continue, when Ren stopped him.

“No, you still can’t.” Ren took a step forward and grabbed his wrist. Hux looked down, and stopped himself from scowling or reacting at the casual contact before he looked back up into Ren’s mask. It was just them and the priest, and it wasn’t an engineered dismissal.

“It’s a solitary reflection, Hux, on the way my life touches others. It’s an exercise for one. It won’t work if you’re there.”

Hux smiled at him, the kind of smile that was fake, and Ren likely knew it, but Hux thought it was realistic enough for most. He turned toward the priest. “Please lead us to the tunnel.”

The priest turned and took a path through the forest, disappearing into an even thicker mess of purple pollen hanging in the air. Hux stifled his annoyance, then twisted his wrist in Ren’s grip to take hold of his hand.

“Come.”

“Hux,” Ren tried, following him, allowing himself to be led down the path by Hux and the priest. Hux gestured for the protocol droid to follow them, and the party lapsed into silence, broken only by the screams of the avians in the canopy and the whirring of the droid as it walked down the path.

“Hux, the meditation won’t work with you there.”

Suddenly, all of this was intolerable. The planet, the aliens. The fact that Ren cared so much about this, enough to fight Hux about it. That Ren even believed in the _stories_  these aliens told to entertain themselves in this miserable place. He felt his throat tighten, his temples throb, and he hardened his voice into what he used when he absolutely wanted to be obeyed.

“Assume, for a moment, that I even believe in meditation, Ren. Then stretch your imagination further and assume I believe you are capable of it, which I know you are not. Tell me what you hope to achieve when this meditation _works_.”

He could feel Ren recoiling from the thoughts storming through his head.

“What is the _matter_  with you? Why do you even care?” Ren tried to jerk his hand from Hux’s, but Hux held on out of spite. He squeezed hard, hoping to hurt Ren’s hand, though he knew Ren could probably break the bones of his own if he squeezed back. He wouldn’t.

“I care about efficient uses of time, which you are perfectly aware of. I care about carrying out orders. I’ve wasted enough time on the surface of the planet, so I wish to complete my mission here and _leave_. My orders do not include your sad attempts at meditation.” Hux scowled over at him. “So please, when we get to the depths of that cave, skip to the part where you punch the wall or throw your helmet across the room when you can’t, and then we’ll take the artifacts and leave.”

Ren tried to jerk his hand back again, but Hux held on, though he nearly tripped in the attempt to keep his grip. Ren said nothing to Hux’s tirade, so they walked in tight silence the rest of the way, Hux’s hand sweating in his glove.

There was a small, mean part of him that enjoyed hurting Ren like this, and Hux loathed satisfying the urge. It was petty and cheap. But it was there, and this whole trip was nothing if not a worthless whim of Ren’s, so in a way, Hux was justified in what he said. He tried to let the urge go and force himself to calm down. He could deal with Ren sitting in silence in the cave. He’d seen it often enough. He should just let Ren take whatever comfort he could from this place, and Hux could go about the business of planning how to obliterate it from space.

Eventually, they reached an unmarked pit, with steep log steps leading down into the ground. There were lamps along the edges of the holes, and whatever they were burning was emitting a foul smell. The walls turned from dusty purple-red to a kind of slick, shiny red-black as the hole continued deeper below the surface. Hux sincerely hoped that the slickness and color was from some sort of humid clay, though the air wasn’t particularly damp.

He turned his repulsed gaze from the hole back to the priest. He realized suddenly that he would need to give a reason for going down into the sacred hole with Ren, and he groped for one before coming up with something obvious. He held up Ren’s hand in his own in demonstration.

“We need to complete the ritual together,” he told the priest, hoping smugly that Ren appreciated his interpretation of what he’d vaguely heard of the doctrine. He was sure the priest would not object either way. He was not _asking_. “Our lives are bound inextricably. Each action we take influences the other. The meditation he performs in the chamber will be an examination of both our lives.”

Ren pulled his hand back and made a strangled noise through his helmet, and the protocol droid barked the translation to the priest. Hux turned and lifted his hands to Ren’s helmet, removing it and revealing an unhappy expression.

“That wasn’t going to be the focus of my meditation,” Ren responded. Hux was relieved that he at least wasn’t sulking over the decision, or what Hux had said to him earlier.

“You can meditate on whatever you want,” Hux told him carelessly, setting his helmet in the dust and hoping the inside would be coated with the red mess. “I just don’t want the priest to throw a fit when I go down there with you.” He began to turn away, then met his eye again. “I don’t want you to throw a fit either. Now or when you get to the part where you can’t meditate.”

The priest was studying them, then bowed its head slightly, barking out a simple statement. The protocol droid translated it a moment later.

“It is true. You may both attend the reflection.”

Hux raised his eyebrows, not prepared for the easy assent after Ren had pushed back so hard against Hux’s presence. He had exaggerated for dramatic effect, as always, and Hux should have known better.

Still. Hux also didn’t like that the priest had agreed to the lie so readily. But then, the alien had yet to register any sort of strong opinion at all. Hux shrugged, and took the assent at face value, gesturing down the pit.

“After you, Knight.”

Ren looked at him for a long moment, then put his hand on his lightsaber and began slowly descending the steep log staircase into the hole. Hux followed, hand on his blaster, noting the humidity went up, and the cloying sweet scent from the forest grew stronger, mixed with the burning hair odor of the lamps that were lit on either side of the tunnel. The lamplight was thin, and did little to penetrate the gloom.

“What is that smell?” He asked after several minutes, contemplating extinguishing the lamps. “Can you use your powers to put out all the lamps? We can use my comm for light. Or whatever you do. Do you even need to see?”

“I don’t.” Ren turned back briefly, wrinkling his nose. “It’s covering the flower smell. I’m not putting out the lamps.”

“You don’t need to see?”

“I can feel the artifacts. They’re reaching out for me. Or _us_ , rather. Since our lives are intertwined.”

Hux eyes stayed steadily on Ren’s back, the way his hair brushed across his shoulders and neck and hid his high collar from behind. “I said that so we could both go down here.”

“That doesn’t make it any less true.”

Hux stayed on alert. He didn’t think there was anything dangerous on this planet, but he kept his hand on his blaster for attack from behind, and felt better that Ren was leading. He really shouldn’t have sent those Stormtroopers away, but Ren’s demeaning dismissal had stung. He still hated that they’d seen it.

This conversation, too, was not one he wished to have. He affected his best bored, droning voice to try and make light of it as best he could, to send Ren into another pouty silence.

“Yes, I know, _we are all one with the Force, which is in all things-_ ”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Ren interrupted, glancing over his shoulder for a moment, but his careful descent down the logs continued. “I mean it, what you said was true under the Vanna-ut belief system.”

“And here I was under the impression that my manipulations no longer had any effect on you. Don’t believe everything I say, unless I tell you to.”

“Of course you still manipulate me.  You were congratulating yourself for it less than ten minutes ago.”

Hux rolled his eyes unseen. Ren had stated it as a plain fact, and didn’t appear to intend any malice by it, but it was never a good sign to have Ren address it so directly.

Part of him knew that he was behaving badly today, that Ren was right, that he shouldn't have come and forced himself into whatever it was that Ren got from these expeditions.  He was being unfair and short with Ren.  But they were also in this cave now, and it was hot and smelled bad, and Hux was going to see this thing through now.

“If you can see through me so well, you’ll know that I just said that so I could come down here.”

Ren stopped, and Hux was surprised enough to stumble into his back. Ren turned around, gripping him by the elbows, and Hux instinctively tried to jerk back, not quite prepared for a physical confrontation. The steps were steep at his back, and Ren was close enough that he couldn’t pull away.

“I do know that. But what you said was still true. What you do affects me, and what I do affects you.”

“Ren.” Hux tried to pull his arms away again, and Ren held tight. He began to grow frustrated. “It’s true because we’re commanders of the First Order, and our decisions have consequences. There are nearly two million members of the army that live and die on my orders. Their lives are bound to me just as much as yours.  This is ridiculous.”

“No.” And with the word, the lamps were all extinguished. Ren was right again, and the cloying sweet smell became overpowering. Hux preferred the burning hair smell.

“ _Ren_ , stop this. Let me go.”

“I didn’t do that.”

Hux was silent a moment, debating whether to call Ren out in the lie. Ren was a compulsive liar, though not usually about matters so inconsequential. But it wasn’t worth the fight right now. With his elbows still locked in Ren’s grip, he turned on the light from his wrist comm, which lit Ren’s face from the bottom, casting it in an eerie blue glow.

“Just… continue,” Hux tried. “Go down the stairs. Meditate. Do whatever you need to. I’ll see to the artifacts, and if they’re too large to walk out with, we’ll make a plan for coming back for them later.”

Ren shook his head. “You’re right, and we both need to approach the artifacts from the same perspective, or my meditation won’t work.”

Hux tried harder to yank his arms out of Ren’s grip, nearly falling backwards into the steep slope of the stair. “This may come as a shock to you, but _I don’t care whether your meditation works_. I want to get out of here. Do it, or don’t, but it has nothing to do with me.”

“ _It does_ ,” Ren all but hissed into his face, and this time he did fall backwards, Ren coming down on top of him, pinning him to the stairs with his weight, a knee coming up unseen between his legs. Hux loathed being overpowered by Ren outside the context of bed, and struggled as Ren held him in place. “We are bound, Hux. Each of us without the other is nothing, but it’s both of us together that hold power.”

Hux didn’t sense anger from Ren, but he was radiating an intensity that made Hux want to flee, to forget this conversation had ever happened. He could not physically recoil from Ren, in this dark sweet-smelling cave, so he struck with his words instead, willing to say anything now and repair the damage later.

“ _Together_.” Hux managed a sneer, and he wondered if Ren could actually see it. “If you think I need you for anything at all, you are sadly mistaken. I’ve been dragging you behind me for years, forcing you down a path you don’t seem interested in. If we are bound, it’s because you are an odious task for me to bear. You hold me back, and I am certain, _certain_ , that I would have gone farther had we never met.”

It was cruel. It was cruel for Hux. It was even cruel for Kylo Ren. But the smell was overpowering, as was what Ren was suggesting, and the complete darkness, and everything about this moment. Hux needed it to end. He felt Ren exhale into his face, the faint smell of the bitter root vegetable he’d eaten for lunch on his breath. Ren’s lack of hygiene would normally be repulsive, but it was a relief compared to the cloying sweet scent of flowers, which was beginning to give him a headache.

“But we did meet, Hux. And you’re wrong. You need me as much as I need you.”

And with that, he slid off Hux, and Hux heard him continue down the passage.

“Ren, wait-” Hux pushed himself back up, trying not to imagine what his uniform looked like. He could feel damp mud through the seat of his pants. His wrist comm was pointed down, illuminating the shape of Ren’s back as he descended the stairs.

“Ren.” His voice rose, and he was suddenly certain that he needed to give some sort of response right now. He needed to say something to fix it.

“Ren!” He shouted, and the other turned around, his face a pale mask in the darkness, outlined in thin blue light, his eyes pools of darkness.

Hux swallowed. He couldn’t apologize. And he was struggling to say something, anything that would counter what he’d just spoken.

“You know me,” he tried weakly. It came out softer, less sure than was his usual, and he hated himself for it. “You know me, and I know you. And you… I was right.”

He meant he was right earlier, when he was speaking to the shaman. Whether or not he actually believed he was right or not, Ren obviously did, and it cost Hux nothing to concede the point.

He wasn’t sure if Ren understood. He could sense nothing of Ren’s Force pressing in on him.

“I do know you, Hux. And you know me.” Ren blinked at him, cocking his head slightly, the thick mess of his hair framing his scarred face in the pale blue light, his eyes dark and eerie pools in his pale, marred flesh.

“I love you, Hux. I always have.”

Hux scowled. Ren used to do this a lot more, though he hadn’t said it in awhile. Years, in fact. Hux let his usual response slip out unbidden. It was normally given in bed, normally had soft edges, normally said with Ren pressed to his body and in his mind.

Today, it came out cold and uncaring.

“You say that as if I want it, Ren. As if the words mean something.”

He knew it was wrong, even as his voice died in the air between them. But his mouth went dry, his throat tightened, and suddenly, he couldn’t speak.

Ren stared at him a moment longer, then turned and continued down the stairs. Whatever had happened, had happened, and Hux knew it wasn’t right. But he also knew he couldn’t fix it, in the cloying sweet darkness of this cave. He followed Ren deeper and deeper into the surface of the planet.


	3. Part One: Equitan - Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took some liberties with science and canon here, and I apologize. The bad science has to do with the Hosnian system, you'll know it when you see it. Hux definitely sucked up the Hosnian system's sun at some point, and Snoke's influence over Ben Solo works differently and is explained later, but might be confusing in this chapter.

Twenty minutes after leaving the SIM rooms, Hux arrived at the quarters which were allotted to Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren.

They were the commander’s quarters on the starboard side of the _Finalizer_ , identical to Hux’s own commander’s quarters on the port side. Traditionally, the rooms were given to the captain and the second, but the situation on the _Finalizer_  was different, since he used it frequently as First Order army command. It would have been more appropriate to use the _Supremacy_  or the _Fulmanatrix_ , but the latter was used too often in active war zones, and the former would have put him too close to Snoke on a regular basis.

So both quarters were allotted to himself and Ren on a permanent basis. Ren’s rooms were unnecessary, and likely should have gone to Colonel Bariss, Hux's actual second on the ship. But Ren deserved them, so they sat vacant.

On his way to the rooms, Hux had checked the registration and found that the space, for lack of Kylo Ren, was indeed allotted to Colonel Bariss. So Hux made sure the Colonel’s duties took her elsewhere on the ship and entered the rooms using his highest security clearance, which would block the entry from any sort of record the ship had.

He wasn’t sure what he was doing in the rooms. He had no excuse, even to explain the motive to himself. When he saw that the berth was assigned to Bariss, he knew what he’d find. Even before that, even if they had been Ren’s rooms, they’d look much the same. They looked like soldier’s quarters - bland, undecorated, the bed made neatly in the large attached sleeping quarters. He didn't bother to look in the large walk-in closet or the standard-issue bureau, knowing he would find a stock of the teal colonel's uniform in Bariss's size. The 'fresher had the bare necessities in it, along with a type of hair conditioner that Hux did not recognize. The kitchen area had only the standard set of equipment, and the conservator had bottled sweet juice and a few sugared treats, nothing he or Ren favored. The bar area between the kitchen and main room had the standard stools, and was bare of decoration.  It had the standard couch, a large wall with a holoset on it, a desk area that looked well-used, with stacks of datachips neatly filed in stacked containers.  It could have been any officer's quarters, save for its exceptional size. Aside from the office area and the food in the conservator, it could easily have been Ren's, though a much cleaner version. Had they actually been Ren's, they’d have been dusty. To Hux’s knowledge, Ren had entered less than half a dozen times, and had slept here twice, as a consequence of two rather spectacular and memorable fights.

Otherwise, all his belongings, what little he had, lived in Hux’s berths, along with the rest of him.

He stood silent for a moment, taking in what little there was to see. He left the lights at twenty percent, because he felt like any brighter would be too overwhelming, knock him further out of reality. Then he sat on the edge of the bed in the sleeping quarters, removed his gloves and command cap, and fished his ID tags out from below his collar. He fingered them without looking down, trying not to think about what he was looking for, and why it was not there.  Instead, he caught sight of his reflection in the full length mirror mounted across from the bed.  He looked into his own eyes and assured himself of his own sanity, even as he felt it slipping away.

Between his tags was where he kept the thin wafer of kyber crystal that Ren had given him when they’d first met, as a token of affection and apology. It was the focusing crystal from his lightsaber. Ren had claimed that he’d worked with it enough that he was attuned to it in the Force, or whatever mystical nonsense, and could find Hux anywhere in the galaxy.

He'd told Hux this as he broke his lightsaber into a thousand tiny components as if the weapon meant nothing to him. As if it wasn't the thing he prided himself most in his Jedi studies, the single thing that he possessed that was truly his, and that he'd truly mastered. It was the lightsaber that Hux had admired in Ben's hand for so many years, and he'd destroyed it, because it didn't mean as much to him as giving the crystal to Hux before Hux walked away.

He'd smashed his rare and valuable weapon, the thing he'd spent his life studying, babbling mystical nonsense, because he wanted to be able to find Hux again.

Hux had wanted to throw it away, didn’t believe Ben, couldn’t believe that he’d destroy his lightsaber just to give Hux one of its rarest and most valuable components. Hux thought the crystal would break in his furious grip, that he would lose it immediately. That hadn't happened. Instead, he’d had it mounted in a setting and hung it between his ID tags, like a weak piece of shit.

And Ben had found him again, bearing that awful, unstable version of his lightsaber. He’d never asked for the crystal back, and Hux had kept it. He hadn’t removed his ID tags since he’d paid for the setting. He and Ren never spoke of it.

Only he and Ren knew it was there. Even if someone had glimpsed it (which they hadn’t, Hux hadn’t removed his uniform in front of anyone since leaving the academy), the crystal was so thin and translucent that the setting would look empty unless you touched it.

But it wasn’t there now. Ren would never remove it, and he would never tell someone else about it. But it wasn’t there now.

Hux finally broke eye contact with his reflection and looked down at his tags. Both of them were there. The kyber crystal was not. The setting wasn’t there. It was as if it had never existed.

He hadn’t wanted to check this. Hadn’t wanted this to be true. This, more than doctored reports or affecting people’s memories, disturbed him. It meant that he was wrong. Either about Ren, or… everything else.

Leaving his ID tags hanging outside his uniform, he began furiously assessing years worth of First Order records from Bariss’s quarters. He could do this from his own rooms, but he’d be forced to look for Kylo’s possessions there, and he was increasingly sure of what he’d find.

Conversely, sitting in Bariss’s bed made him think of the make-up sex they’d had after the second fight, which had been about an impulsive command decision that Ren had made while planetside on a mission that Hux had strenuously disagreed with. Hux had actually entered the room after a sleepless night to berate Ren for it yet again. Ren had also not slept, and both of their tempers had been high. Ren had pinned Hux against the wall with the Force, and Hux had insulted him, asking if it felt good to hold power over the weak, if he'd really needed to take his petty insecurities out on an entire settlement, and Ren had approached him, grabbed his face-

He pushed this out of his mind. Being in these quarters without Ren was more awful than trying not to think of the one time they had sex in this bed. He focused on the reports, looking for any sign of Ren. Any of his missions, his research into societies and customs. His Knights, his medical records, his training regimes. Anything. Anything at all about him.

There was simply nothing. For all intents and purposes, Kylo Ren did not exist.  At least, as far as the First Order was concerned.  And who was Kylo Ren without the First Order?

There was one more thing he could check, one more piece of evidence that would confirm or deny this madness. It was an easy thing, physical evidence that could not be stolen or faked. But Hux didn’t want that, just yet. He was increasingly sure of what he’d find, of the seemingly insane possibility of this last resort, which was even more awful than the personal violation of Ren taking his focusing crystal back.

Well.

The records, the entire history archives of the First Order, including items that he was sure Ren couldn’t access, all of it had been altered to reflect… something impossible. The recorded history of the First Order differed significantly from reality.

 _Or his memory_. Hux quashed the thought. Thy were the same.

Hux started with the coordinate orders he’d seen on the bridge. The navigation logs. He looked up his own orders, going back two years.

For two years, they’d allegedly been patrolling the Gerllor sector of Wild Space. Nothing but. And they had indeed been circling this same hyperspace route for six months, pursuing the pirates that Bariss had mentioned.

 _Pirates_. As if it took six months to catch _pirates_. As if that was something done with one of the _Resurgent_ -class destroyers. That was grunt work for a large transport. And they usually finished their missions in two weeks, unless the pirates were particularly clever.

But the pirates didn’t interest him, weren’t a group he’d heard of before. It was the area they were traveling in that bothered him. It was too small for a standard patrol, too close to other patrol routes, and not far enough out to be worth patrolling. They’d set up self-governing systems for this sector of space ages ago.

Instead, he entered coordinates for Ventu from memory, since that had been the area they had most recently traveled to.

It didn’t exist in the system. Not only were there no exploration or observation records related to it, it was _uncharted_. As if they hadn’t been through that part of Wild Space a thousand times over the past decade.

He entered coordinates from missions that they’d been on since Starkiller’s failure. None of it was there. All uncharted.

He brought up a holoprojection, and viewed its dim, cheerless record in the darkness of Bariss’s quarters, on the large wall meant for the purpose. It was the basic star chart that mapped all the territories that belonged to the First Order. All the planets they’d invaded, all the systems they traded resources with. All their allies. Everyone they’d encountered, for good or ill, since the beginning of the Order.

It was a fraction of what it was. Barely over a hundred systems. The chart was tiny, expanding out in a small radius from where the _Eclipse_  had settled when he was a boy, encroaching slightly on the edges of the Outer Rim, with twinkling lights to indicate negotiated contacts and allies in the formerly Republic-controlled sectors of the galaxy.

Those contacts and allies were much fewer. Almost all of it was missing. As if they had been sitting on their hands for thirty years. Angrily, he dismissed the map, standing and pacing with datapad in hand for the rest of his research, his boots echoing loudly in the small space, his round ID tags clinking together as they swayed on their chain.

It didn’t make sense. An area of the map that size would barely hold their fleet. So Hux brought up the history of the other destroyers, what they had been doing for the last several years.

Destroyers. Six of them. Two dreadnoughts. A dozen large transports. A tiny TIE fleet. Snoke’s _Supremacy_.

There was no record of the rest of the fleet.

Hux stopped pacing, projecting the information on the wall again. It was hot in the room. He hadn’t bothered to activate the environmental controls, and apparently Bariss followed the strict regulations to keep them powered down to conserve energy. Heat tended to build up in the rooms closer to the core of the ship. He pushed his hair off his forehead and felt sweat trickling down his back under his tunic and coat, but he ignored it. He read the information from the wall and tapped his inquiries furiously into the datapad, each more incredulous than the last.

They expanded their territory at the rate of about three planets a year, each planet requiring an excessive courting dance. Hux pored over records of negotiations that extended many many months past what was considered standard or worthwhile. He read reports of their skirmishes, the way their battles shifted back and forth, the way they lost almost as much as they won.

Hux pulled up his own personal battle record, the buzzing static ringing through his head back and louder than ever, threatening to overwhelm his thoughts, his vision throbbing from a headache behind his eyes. He’d have to get analgesics from medical. The normalcy of that was nearly distracting. He couldn’t think. It wasn’t doing him any good, anyway.

His personal record, in this alternate version of First Order history, looked much the same as everyone else’s. He didn’t actively engage the front lines. His role appeared to be cleanup once the other five Destroyers had finished their battles. His units went planetside and did recruiting, or he sent transports to pick up recruits after negotiations. He handled all training, and appeared to send out the orders to balance the army between the fleets.

He didn’t engage.

Except he _had_ , on several memorable occasions. He’d won several territories himself, through both cunning and military prowess. None of those territories were on here. None of them were even charted. Hux’s coordinates refused to pull up any information about Wild Space, the system insisting there were no known maps, nothing for the coordinates to map to.

Starkiller wasn’t mapped, and there wasn’t even a record of Starkiller in the system. Of course. Because in this record, they wouldn’t have nearly enough tech, resources, personnel, or even a reason to build it. They apparently struggled with planetary and system-wide invasions. The thought of the organization Hux was seeing taking over the galaxy, eliminating the New Republic, was laughable. They were nowhere near ready.

He stopped himself. There was no sense playing a logical game with this data. This was telling Hux a story that ran directly counter to his memories. Starkiller _should_  exist, regardless of the context in these files. A corner of his mouth quirked at the thought of Ren deleting it. It was a failure, after all, though…

He lowered his datapad and dismissed the holoprojection, standing in the darkness of Bariss’s quarters, blinking and digesting the thought he just had.

Every single piece of evidence he’d found this morning went along with whatever… elaborate fantasy this was. He kept telling himself it was Ren, but the feeling of dread crept up in him more and more. Why would Ren do this?

He wouldn’t.

So what else could it be?

There was nothing. There was nothing to compare this experience to, no sense behind it. No motive. Nothing, other than driving him to disgrace himself. He wanted Ren now, if only to turn to and rail at, to have someone to confirm all his memories for him. If nothing else, Ren was good about letting Hux take out his frustrations, agreeing with him until Hux had spent all his fury and consented to the often excellent sex they had in the wake of such rare outbursts.

Ren was always on his side.

_Because our lives are bound._

He wrinkled his nose, remembering the pervasive sweet scent of Ventu, then moved on.

Talking to someone would be useful, if only to get all the nonsense out of his head, out in the open, where he could dismiss it for the conspiracy it was. But the only sympathetic ear he had was Ren. Any competent officer worth Hux’s time was also an enemy, someone looking for signs of weakness to usurp his position. He could simply speak it all aloud, pretend someone-

_Ren_

-was listening, but that seemed purposeless, and also foolish. And probably someone was trying to get him to do that very thing, and would have some clever way to record it. It would be used against him.

He ran his fingers through his hair again, contemplating the dark doorway that led back to the main hall.

There was one thing that couldn’t lie to him, that there was no way to change or alter. One thing, aside from Ren, that would prove to Hux that this was a conspiracy against him. The thing he didn’t want to check, because _what if it was there?_

He tucked the disheveled mess of his hair underneath his command cap, tucked his ID tags back into his collar, and left Bariss’s quarters using a quickstep that would look unusual to anyone that saw him. He didn’t care.

 

* * *

 

He sat by himself in the clear-domed observation deck above the bridge, gazing out to the stars. It was a large space that could accommodate two hundred people in various tables and couches scattered around, a popular recreation area that was also used for Command Meetings. It had a transparisteel dome that was striped with ribbons of lighting that were currently turned off.

Hux lay on his back on the dark durasteel floor next to the main console and the expansive open meeting area. His arms were folded beneath his head, and he stared up into the splash of countless stars in this sector of space, unique to their area and position. He knew so many of them, had traveled to and researched so many systems. There were several scientists and navigation specialists that knew more about the stars than he did, but none who had command could match his knowledge.

He’d cleared the room when he’d arrived, disabled all the security cameras, and finally allowed himself the very private, hysterical breakdown that he’d been putting off since this morning. He hadn’t bothered with the environmental controls again, and they had cycled off some time ago, not sensing movement in the room. Underneath the transparisteel dome, the bitter cold pressed in. He’d gone numb, and he was beginning to ache with a different kind of pain. He did not get up. But his thoughts were now blissfully empty, the ringing gone with the furious struggle he was having with reality, the headache receded.

The hours passed. Two, three hours. Wasted. Gazing at the stars. Nothing else. No other thoughts entering his head. Because… why? What else was he supposed to think?

The stars were immovable. No matter who controlled what, they stayed in the sky, the only exceptions being the ones that died a natural death and the ones he’d personally extinguished. They represented time as well as lives. He could look millions of years into the past and see worlds that didn’t exist any more.

Or systems.

The Hosnian system didn’t exist any more. Hux had personally extinguished the star and all five of its habitable planets. He’d given the order, and billions of people had died, along with the New Republic. It had all felt worth it, at the time. Starkiller had failed, but that one fact remained. It had succeeded in definitively erasing the corruption and action-less New Republic government. He could do better, and he swore it that day, on the countless lives he would save by sacrificing these billions.

He’d tried manually viewing the Hosnian system, at first. He knew where the system was from all points of First Order space, could usually chart it with the naked eye. He’d spent so long with the Hosnian system, gazing up at it as he oversaw Starkiller. And in the wake of Starkiller’s destruction, he also knew where its absence was in space. It was the one tangible sign of his victory that he could look out and see.

Except the absence wasn’t there anymore. The system was.

He double-checked the present coordinates of the _Finalizer_  manually, then pulled up star charts for this area of space. Then he pulled the holoprojection over the observation deck, labeling every known star in the sky in as much detail as Hux wanted.

Including the Hosnian system.

It was there. Indisputably. He zoomed in until he was sure. It wasn’t an illusion, a projection, or anything that he was being forced to see. It was most certainly there. He even pulled up the pirated Republican news feeds from after the Hosnian system’s destruction.

According to these news feeds, nothing had happened on that day. A holocelebrity had died in a speeder crash that had killed 3 other beings. The Keton system had settled a trade agreement with Fo-7. There had been reports of an outbreak of a biological toxin in the Pennin system.

No planets had been destroyed. No systems had been eliminated. All those people were still alive.

So Hux lied on his back on the floor, looking at the stars, from one of the six Star Destroyers in the First Order fleet as it slowly cornered a band of pirates at the edge of Wild Space. Time passed. Their position shifted, but not much. He saw a handful of parasitic tibidees soar by, indicating they were nearer a planet than Hux thought. Dimly, he registered a ping on his datapad as the maintenance alert went out after the ship scan revealed parasitic tibidees feeding on some of the aft plating.

The static buzz in his head had ceased, along with his rational thoughts. Just the one remained.

Where was Ren? What had happened to him? _What had happened here?_

If it was not Ren’s doing, then he was also affected, which was alarming. Where was Ren now, and would he have Hux’s memories? Or would he be like everyone else?

Hux sat up suddenly, the thought of Ren not sharing his memories intolerable. He shook himself, chastised himself for moping (though if any circumstance was a crisis, it was this one, which was somehow suddenly worse that Starkiller’s destruction), and pulled up his own personnel file, setting the environmental controls to kick on as his fingers moved numb and sluggish across the surface of the datapad. He vaguely heard the HVAC ticcing, the blowers begin, but it would be some time before the entire space was heated.

He tracked his missions backwards. It was as if everything had moved in slow motion. The First Order was approximately twelve years behind, in terms of resources, influence, mapping, planets conquered, and everything else. Paging through his own missions and those of the other destroyers, action that should only have taken one or two standard months was stretched out to more than a year, as careful planning and what appeared to be meetings and meetings worth of strategizing, test soirees, research gathering, and other factors extended to over a year, in some cases. It was as if…

Ren.

Hux sat up straighter, digging into the records more, a certain kind of insane logic making the task exciting rather than terrifying, though it still very much should have been.

These were all missions that had been completed soon after Ren had joined the First Order. Ren and his Knights went to planets as clandestine agents, gathering information, infiltrating the government, or sewing the seeds of rebellion. They had trained other guerrilla soldiers how to do the same thing, and how to work with them and their unique abilities as a unit. Ren’s impatience meant he pushed for rash plans of action that worked, more often than not. And when all else failed, Ren had gone planetside and either forced the hand of the leaders in a negotiation or had simply executed any dissenters in the government structure. No one had yet stopped him. Not even Hux, pleading as he did with Ren for a curb to his rage, a different outlet for his fury.

Hux had always chastised him for his rashness, his methods. But…

But this was what the First Order without Kylo Ren looked like.

 _What you do affects me, and what I do affects you_.

Hux stood, throwing his datapad as hard as he could against the transparisteel wall of the observation platform. He stood looking at the shattered pieces of it for another immeasurable amount of time, the stars shifting around him.

After a long stretch of nothing, he heard the door whir open behind him, the sound of boots walking across the deck. He squared his shoulders. Didn’t dare turn around. He didn’t want anyone to see him like this, had purposely locked the rooms and raised the security clearance-

“Armitage?”

The voice was hesitant, but recognizable. Hux had known her nearly his entire life.

“Colonel.”

He composed his face and turned around. She wouldn’t be able to see the shattered datapad from where she was standing, and he assumed he otherwise looked composed.

She stepped forward hesitantly, her outline barely visible in the darkness of the room against the unlit backdrop of the wall leading to the transport. But Hux knew her voice, and could vaguely see the outline of her command cap, the lines of her teal uniform. But not the expression on her face.

“Lights, twenty percent.”

They stared at each other, revealing nothing.

“Can I help you, _Colonel_?”

Bariss still sometimes used his first name if they were alone, as if to maintain a familiarity that Hux had been trying to shed since the cadet program. He hadn’t used hers since they were children.

Bariss’s face revealed nothing, nor did her body language. She came to a stop not far inside the door, putting her hands behind her back at attention. She was the same age as Hux, one of the first children his father had recruited in the Unknown Regions. She was as indoctrinated and as loyal as Hux, and was certainly here looking for an excuse to find a weakness.

She hesitated a moment before speaking. “You seemed unwell earlier. Your actions on the bridge were... uncharacteristic. What was that about?”

“It was nothing, Colonel. I was troubled. I rested this afternoon, and will be back for my next shift.”

Bariss took a step closer. “Armitage,” she said again, slight admonishment in her voice. “You’re never troubled. You never... show yourself like that. Tell me what happened. Who is Kylo Ren?”

Hearing her ask that question almost made him storm out in a fury. _Who is Kylo Ren_. He’d had to stop Ren from killing Bariss on more than one occasion. Bariss was too valuable. Ren swore that she wasn’t in Hux’s best interest. Ren was a violent creature of whim, and Hux knew his officers better than he did, even without the ability to read their minds. Bariss was no threat to him, but she was most certainly plotting behind his back.

He narrowed his eyes. Was she somehow involved in this?

“I was admiring the Hosnian system,” he said, aware it was a nonsequitur, but desperate to see her reaction.

Her face was wary for a moment, quickly hidden. “I don’t need to hear more of your screeds about the New Republic. I’m asking you how _you_  feel.”

Hux let his face twitch, the barest hint of contempt. Her request about his politics was more strongly worded than most, but not an uncommon reaction. Ren complained constantly about Hux’s rants, and he had stated his opinions and theories regularly enough in the conditioning programs and daily announcements for the officers and Troopers.

This sounded more like Bariss was asking him to _open up_. As if he would trust her with personal information. He wanted to laugh.

“I’m fine, Colonel.” He turned, wanting to leave the room, but not willing to leave her with the remnants of his datapad. He straightened back up into an attention posture to match her own. “I was just leaving, retiring to my quarters. You’ve been on duty for nearly thirty solid hours. I will commend you for resolving the errand about the fuel allotments.” That was the chore he had made up in order to go through her rooms. “For the time being, retire to your rooms. Get some sleep. You’re no good to me exhausted.”

She shook her head. “I took care of the other things, too. The rumors about your… interrogations. In the Fabrication plant, and the pilots. The new training you implemented is getting some talk, too. The Troopers and trainers think you’re a genius. Everyone else thinks you’re hiding a new ally.”

There it was. She thought that Hux had an advantage. She was trying to use it.

“I am,” he said firmly, the lie coming easy in the moment. He crossed his arms and gave a huff of exasperation. “He should have been here yesterday. A new negotiator. He’ll do wonders for us.”

Bariss was as good at controlling her expression as Hux was. Still, they had known each other for a long time, and he knew her tells. She was confused at that.

“Do you plan on negotiating with the pirates? What use is a negotiator to us right now?”

“He’s also a warrior. He’ll have those pirates in days.”

She rolled her eyes at that, a luxury he allowed her because they were in private, and it was a comfort to know she might let something more significant slip in front of him, if she let her guard down.

“A negotiator as well as a warrior. A real prize. Who is this mysterious Kylo Ren?”

“Better than you can imagine. He can do everything.” He clenched his jaw.

 _Our lives are bound_.

“Except show up on time,” Bariss drawled, crossing her own arms in an irritating imitation of Hux’s posture. “If he can’t stick to a schedule, what good is he to us?”

“He makes his own schedule,” Hux answered curtly, still mulling the scenario over in his mind. “I’m unable to reach him. We were far enough along that I’d like to go to him myself, lest he have any… lingering doubts about the Order.” He nodded. “So I may have to leave the ship for a time.”

Bariss frowned. “When was the last time you left the ship?”

Hux didn’t know an answer to that question that reflected what Bariss knew. The real answer was _yesterday_.

 _Our lives are bound_.

“That’s of no consequence. I’ll be leaving. Hopefully tomorrow.” He’d need to speak to Snoke. He honestly had no idea how long that would take - Snoke could comm over and be available immediately, but he’d never actually contacted Snoke himself. “I’ll need to see if I can re-establish contact.”

Bariss looked at him in silence, and Hux became annoyed, wanting her to leave so he could clean up the room and return to his quarters.

“All right. It sounds like you have a new ally. An unreliable one. Who can do everything. Who you’ve never spoken of before. That's perfectly reasonable.” She was using a tone that indicated that she didn’t really believe the story. But ultimately, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like the truth was simple, either.

“Fine. All right. You can tell me and everyone else that. But I want you to know…” she took a step forward, a hand coming up between them, then dropping. “Just. You can talk to me. All right? Sometimes I worry about you, even though you don’t deserve it.”

Hux took a step back. Such blatant bootlicking wasn’t her style. She hadn’t been this unsubtle in a long time.

“Dismissed, Colonel,” he said shortly.

She sighed, stared at him a moment longer with her cold brown gaze, then turned and left without saying anything else.

He took a breath. The air in the chamber was still cold, but had thankfully warmed up enough that his breath didn’t cloud when he exhaled. That would have been difficult to explain. He went to the wall panel and ordered the light back down to zero, then looked back up into the stars. He located the Hosnian system again, then turned back to the wall panel and ordering a maintenance droid to the deck to clean up the datapad, allowing an all clear once it was done. Then he retired to his own rooms.

From there, he put in a request to speak to Supreme Leader Snoke.

 

* * *

 

 

“General Hux.”

“Supreme Leader. I thank you for granting me this audience.”

The next morning, Hux was kneeling in the cavernous and dark main comm room by himself, head bowed, saying the right words, cleaned up and as impeccably presented as always. He had slept badly, but he'd prepped himself extensively on all the possibilities for this meeting, all the right things to say. His current kneeling posture was as servile as he’d ever been to the oversize holoprojections of Snoke. The being was Ren’s powerful master, and a source of income for the First Order. Nothing more. He had earned no respect from Hux, except for the harm he could do when insolence was plainly shown.

“I allowed it because this is the first time you’ve asked to speak to me yourself. What has happened?”

It was true. Hux was always summoned by Snoke, never the other way around. Any crises were handled by Hux himself, and all the other heads of the First Order reported to Hux, not Snoke. Snoke called for him periodically to give updates on whatever Hux was pursuing. But his money was still plentiful, so Hux spent it, and had yet to determine its source. Snoke never seemed that interested in how it was spent, save to make things more bloody and complicated, something that was happening increasingly frequently.

Or, at least, had been. Hux didn’t know about this version of the Supreme Leader.

“Nothing of note, Supreme Leader. All is proceeding normally. I have a request about a possible avenue of exploration.”

“A request! From General Hux! I never thought the day would come. What do you feel you need _permission_  for, General?”

Hux felt his lips twitch, but he managed not to sneer openly at Snoke. At least his personality appeared to be the same. He kept his expression neutral, one arm carefully crossed above his bent knee, the other at his side, still.

“Have you heard of the Jedi Apprentice Ben Solo?”

“Ben Solo?” Snoke leaned forward in his throne, the holoprojection causing him to loom large over Hux. Hux clenched his jaw, shoving down the memory of the first time Snoke met Ben all those years ago. Part of him had hoped that, if this were a trick of the Force, that somehow Snoke would be unaffected, that Snoke could tell him what was going on. But Snoke’s curiosity, and the fact he didn’t immediately eviscerate Hux for stating the obvious, meant that Snoke was the same as the others.

But Ren would remember. Ren wouldn't forget.

“I have heard of him. What has he to do with you?”

Something twisted inside Hux at the thought of re-introducing Ren to Snoke. He froze for a moment, unable to put him through that again. But just as quickly, he realized it would be different this time. Ren would know. He was much stronger, and he would be prepared. They both would be. The corner of Hux’s mouth twitched.

“I’ve been researching Force users, and the possibility of testing individuals and training them as part of the Trooper program. Similar to the Jedi, but conditioning them just like any Trooper to be loyal and obedient. I’ve heard that Force sensitivity… increases reaction time and can unlock physical feats that would otherwise be impossible,” he paused slightly at this, thinking of Ren and failing to translate his skills into a standard Trooper, “and I’d like to think our program could test and train them ourselves. But it occurred to me that having an individual trained as a Jedi would benefit us immensely. Not only could they train the Troopers, but all of a Jedi’s talents could be of use to us, if we were able to recruit one.”

“Your confidence is bottomless, as always. What makes you think that Ben Solo could ever be anything but a waste of time at best, and a mortal enemy at worst?”

Hux bent his head in a show of deference, but he did so to hide his contempt, to master it before it showed on his face. _Because I’ve done everything with him for the past fourteen years_  was what he wanted to say. But he’d prepared himself for what Snoke’s objections would be, and he said what he’d practiced instead, looking back up into the holoprojection of Snoke’s face with his usual neutral expression.

“Because he takes no active part in the New Republic government, which doesn’t suggest strong ties to their ideologies. At best, perhaps he can be swayed by our own politics.”

Snoke nodded and smiled kindly, folding his hands in his lap. “Because a fascist military government is exactly what everyone who doesn’t actively support the Senate is secretly hoping for.” He leaned back in his throne. “I’m beginning to believe that you swallow your own lies about this organization, General.”

Hux bit his tongue, and his fingers twitched at his side. That the Supreme Leader of the First Order could be so glib about its core principles was yet another reason-

Not here. Such blatantly treasonous thoughts were not wise in front of the Force user. He told himself to ignore the jab.

“Strong leadership and decisive action are what he could be made to believe in. Help where help is needed, not just for wealthy planets.”

“You’re wasting my time with your propaganda. I’ve heard it before. It’s not as charming or persuasive as you believe it is.”

Apparently everyone was openly mocking Hux for his beliefs now.  He held back a sneer. He reminded himself that Ren did the same thing, though at least believed in what they were doing.

“I think it’s worth trying,” he insisted, raising his voice. “I want to talk to him. Find out what he wants to hear, and tell him that.”

Snoke smirked. “You do excel at that.”

Hux closed his mouth and swallowed, waiting just the right amount of time for the next point, the one that would make Snoke consent. It make his stomach turn. But he knew it would work. He’d told himself it was necessary, even as he checked to make sure that Snoke wasn’t hiding his Force abilities, in the absence of an apprentice. He debated standing, but decided kneeling deferentially was ultimately better.

“When he comes, he can study the Force under you. Certainly you have much you can teach him.”

Snoke paused, and shifted to prop an elbow on the throne and lean on a hand, the casual posture belying the seriousness of the moment. Hux stared back silently, waiting for his assessment. He knew this could still go very badly.

“I don’t like being manipulated,” he shot back suddenly, and Hux felt the air tense around him.

“I don’t understand. By offering Ben Solo as your apprentice?”

“Don’t play dumb with me. We both know you’re far from it. Ben Solo hasn’t appeared in public in over a decade. And you bring him up now? You request a meeting and ask specifically for this, when you haven’t asked permission for anything in years? Why?”

Hux felt fingers ghost across his face, the barest touch of the Force. It was something Ren did, sometimes, when he was angry, and usually led to rather raucous sex. Hux shivered involuntarily. Snoke sat forward, interested, likely tasting the edge of the thought, and Hux shoved down everything he was feeling into the deepest, most private parts of his memory. He felt the muscles of his shoulders and back tense, and he willed himself calm. He couldn’t panic. He still had control.

But, ultimately, he had no answer for Snoke. As he sat, trying to frame a response and remain impassive, Snoke pushed harder.

“I heard about your little tirade yesterday, General. Your entire ship was talking about it. You made a scene in medical, then on the bridge. There was even a rumor you showed up ranting nonsense in fabrication. And then you introduced radical changes to the Stormtrooper program, things your training staff are still talking about and integrating.”

The pressure against his face became firmer, and he felt a tension all the way down to his bones, a tautness and a cruel chill that did not belong to him. It was an edge of pain he could deal with, but promised so much more. The sick taste of fear sprung up in the back of his mouth, something he hadn’t needed in front of Snoke in years.

 _Because of Ren_.

He had to be calm. He had to say something. But nothing came to him but the truth. He clenched his eyes shut, and forced himself to say it.

“I had… what must have been a vision, Supreme Leader. Of the First Order. Newer. Better. You had Ben Solo as your apprentice, and we eliminated the New Republic government decisively one year ago. Our fleet, our numbers, our territory, all of it was so much bigger and still growing, free to expand into the core worlds unopposed. We had done it all with Ben Solo, who had become Kylo Ren under your leadership.”

Snoke narrowed his eyes, and Hux knew, in that moment, that Snoke believed him to be a far better manipulator than he was. He felt Snoke’s invasion of his mind like a tearing sensation, like his head was being split in two and hollowed out, and he lost himself to it, preferring unconsciousness to the pain that he’d seen Ren put through so many times.

When he woke up, he was laying on the floor at Snoke’s translucent blue feet, nearly blinded by pain that went bone-deep and everywhere, his skin clammy and numb where it touched his clothes, where his cheek lay against the floor. He could not sense if the pain was more physical, mental, or spiritual. Everything hurt. He closed his eyes, not bothering to move. There was no point, nothing to save. How much had Snoke taken?

“Interesting. You weren’t lying. And it was much more than a vision, General. This is all-consuming. Everything I saw was of a different First Order entirely. And Kylo Ren…”

Snoke hissed and trailed off, and for that, Hux did push himself off the floor, back onto his knees. He wiped his face, and his glove came away wet, but not with blood. He pushed the pain away, pushed his hair out of his face, and resumed his kneeling posture, this time without his hat. He met Snoke’s eye defiantly.

“How was it done, in this vision that you had?”

So he hadn’t seen everything. That was probably for the best. “I did it, Supreme Leader.”

Snoke’s mouth quirked, and Hux knew that Snoke had sensed what was between them, too.

 _Our lives are bound_.

“When was it done, in your version of events?”

Hux blinked, trying to realign his thoughts. Snoke had seen his memories, and so readily accepted the truth and reality behind them. Hux didn’t want to have this conversation, because it would make what was happening to him somehow more real, less like a dream he was about to wake from. The buzzing in his head started again, and Hux pushed it to the back of his thoughts the best he could.

“Fourteen years ago. I…” Hux hesitated. “I contacted him, and he joined us a year later, bringing eight other Jedi apprentices with him. As he trained with you, he was given work to do for the First Order. He was successful. _We_  were successful.”

“You personally, General, or the Order?” This was said with a degree of lazy amusement that Hux wasn’t sure he liked. Still. Hux was not known for his humility, and there was no point pretending.

“Both, Supreme Leader.”

Snoke sat up straight in his chair again, his hands resting limply in his lap. Hux stared at them a moment before shifting his gaze back to Snoke’s face, which wasn’t capable of much expression aside from cruel amusement. Such power in such an unassuming form.

“And before? How does your memory of the First Order differ from before my apprentice joined us?”

Hux mentally recoiled from the way Snoke was already claiming ownership of Ren, but reminded himself of the hope he had glimpsed earlier. Ren would know Snoke now, and it would be different.

“Everything in my vision matches… First Order history,” he stopped himself from saying ‘current’, it was not helpful, “up until Ben Solo should have joined us. All the growth and personnel we had before that is exactly the same. And there are some similarities after - personnel, and types of training. But mostly the… vision told me that-” he struggled. This was no vision. This was the truth, it was real, it had _happened_ \- “The First Order was better with Ben Solo. _We need him_.”

The last part was unintentional, but Hux knew he could be convincing, zealous when he needed to be. He needed to be right now.

Snoke studied him silently for a moment. Hux’s body sang with the abuse he’d suffered at his hand, and he hoped that whatever the Supreme Leader had taken from his memories was convincing enough.

“I have never seen a vision as powerful as yours, General. There is something… working through you.” He stood. “I will allow this.”

Hux bowed, closing his eyes to keep his head from spinning. “Thank you, Supreme Leader. It is the right decision.”

“There are conditions.”

Hux looked at him. He weighed the possibilities. Realized it didn’t matter. He needed Ren back. Ren belonged here.

“I understand.”

Snoke’s black eyes glittered, and his face looked amused. The pain was all that kept the contempt back this time. He couldn’t afford any more abuse today.

“This is clearly… a cause near and dear to you, General. But I don’t throw resources at mere dreams. If he is so necessary to… your plans to the First Order,” and here Snoke paused, and Hux wished Ren had killed him long ago, for everything, “You must go after him yourself.”

Hux’s fury eased. That was simple. “Of course.”

“I mean that you will be _by yourself_ , completely alone. You are not to bring any Troopers, negotiators, or other personnel with you on this fool’s errand. Just yourself. You and whatever that silver tongue of yours can come up with. And according to your visions, that is _rather a lot_.”

Hux clenched his jaw, everything in him protesting letting the insult stand.

“I need personnel, Supreme Leader, just a shuttle-”

“Yes or no, General? If you cannot do it by yourself, than you will not do it at all. It is not worth the time and resources to me otherwise.”

Hux looked at him long and hard. He wanted everything he’d earned, had built himself, over the course of his lifetime. Those Troopers, those officers, negotiators, clandestine agents, those ships. Those were all Hux’s. They did not belong to Snoke. Their use was the only reason he was asking permission at all. If he had meant to go by himself, he would have put himself on leave and departed.

“General.” Snoke sat down again, and Hux felt the brush of that pressure against his face. “Another moment, and I will take your silence as a ‘no’ and end the matter now.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader.” Hux bowed his head again, and the pressure against his face disappeared. “Just a small transport. That’s all I will require.”

“Excellent. Good to hear. You will also be taking your own leave.”

Hux looked up again. “Of course.” He almost never took it. He had so much accumulated, he was sure he could take a documented year away from the Order.

“Excellent. I will replace you with Korr Bariss in your absence.”

And finally, what Snoke said clicked.

Snoke would replace him while he was away. He would simply promote Bariss and give all the power to her. Bariss’s naked entreaty the day before came back to him, and he saw it again for the shallow manipulation it was. Hux smirked.

“As you wish, Supreme Leader. She will be more than capable of taking care of those pirates while I am away.”

It would have been an insult to the Bariss Hux knew, to imply that she could accomplish so little. But he wasn’t sure if it was the same here. It was probably better than his insult went undetected, when every twitch of every muscle screamed along Hux’s nerves with the abuse he’d already suffered from Snoke ripping the memories from his mind.

“She will be more than adequate. This will be instructional. I’m eager to see how she runs things in your absence. We’ll see where you and… Ben Solo fit in when you return. With Ben Solo, of course.”

Hux’s mouth twitched again. Snoke was implying that he would not be given back his command, that he would need to bet his position on Ben Solo, and return with him if he ever wanted a hope of getting it back. Simple enough. He knew Kylo Ren as he knew himself. He was sure. Ren would come back with him, whether he remembered everything or not.

_Our lives are bound._

Snoke frowned, clearly sensing Hux’s confidence, and not happy with it.

“I want to be clear. If you do this, you will be demoted, pending a performance review of Ben Solo.”

Hux exhaled through his nose, his chest aching with the small movement. Snoke’s whims were not easy to predict. Snoke might just dismiss Ben Solo because Hux was right. But Hux knew that Ren would not be so easily dismissed, and neither would he.

The First Order was his, not Snoke’s. He could simply have Bariss executed if Snoke decided to keep her in power. A loss, but manageable. All it would take would be a single call to Internal Security. They had done it for him before. More calls would ensure that no one Snoke put in Command would be tolerated. Internal Security followed his orders above all others.

And if Internal Security couldn’t do it, Ren would be more than happy to.

This would work. He kept the smirk off his face.

Snoke’s frowned deepened.

“Ben Solo’s performance is unimpeachable. You will be pleased with your new apprentice, Supreme Leader.”

And that would require some thought, how to get around that, how to stop it this time. But now wasn’t the time for that. He just wanted the conversation to end.

Snoke leaned in, over him, and Hux felt the pressure of his presence, presumably through his Force powers. How he projected such things was a mystery, not one that Hux wanted to contemplate. Hux shrank back, bracing himself by planting his hands on the floor behind his back, his muscles protesting the motion. He was willing to give Snoke that much deference.

“Armitage Hux, I have known you since you were a _boy_ , cringing at Brendol’s knee and slavering for any favor you could snatch. I know you to be highly intelligent, an opportunist, and a manipulator. I did not believe you to be so foolish as to throw your career away for a _sex dream_.”

The ringing in his thoughts grew louder. Hux forced himself to stand, his muscles and nerves screaming, his vision going dark. He stood up through the center of the holoprojection of Snoke’s chest, somewhat defiantly. Where his body intersected with the projection of Snoke, there was pain. Intense pain.

But it wasn’t nearly as bad as the ringing in his head.

He would not be insulted by xeno trash in this way. He stepped back to give Snoke his full regard, doing his best to ignore the intense pain, the blackness at the edges of his vision. He clenched his fists at his sides hard enough to feel the creaking of his leather gloves.

“It was a _vision_. A vision of what the First Order _should_  be.” Hux sneered, his eyes unfocused, Snoke not backing down from where he was still bent forward. “Kylo Ren is the way. He is far from a _sex partner_.”

“And yet, I have seen the filth inside your head. Republic celebrity fantasies. Who would have guessed that of _you_? My sources said you were celibate. Never used sex even for your petty manipulations.”

Hux was silent, fantasizing briefly that he could channel Ren’s Force, that the power of his rage could deactivate the holoprojector, end the call, then destroy the room. Ideally, he could destroy Snoke that way, too. He often had these thoughts in Snoke’s presence, though it was usually Ren that Snoke heaped abuse on, knowing that Ren was far more susceptible to it than Hux. Though not even Ren was insulted this blatantly to his face. Hux had never had more than an oblique insult, usually about petty ambition. Hux deserved better than this.

“Ahh, I’ve made you mad, General. Good. Go off, chase your celebrity. Come back. Or don’t. It matters little to me.”

Snoke sat back, the holocall going dark, along with all the light and the heat in the comm room. Emergency lighting kicked on, casting dim illumination through the chamber. Hux stood in the dark, his breath steaming in front of his face. He willed himself calm. Willed his pain to recede enough to leave the chamber without a limp. He could have no weakness.

It was not _sex_. Ren was. _Necessary_. The Order had failed without him. He was needed.

 _Our lives are bound_.

Hux turned on his heel and left, letting the fires of his rage numb the physical pain from Snoke’s torture.


	4. Part One: Equitan - Chapter 4

Hux left the _Finalizer_ , more bothered than he should have been by the knowledge that Snoke was trying to get rid of him. He was very aware that anyone Snoke didn’t want around did not stay. But the Order was his, and he would come back with Ren.

He left in a small one-man transport, barely big enough to hold a hyperdrive engine, autopilot, and a bunk with a locker below it. It was his own personal transport, given to him upon his promotion to General, though he could count on one hand the number of times he’d used it. He was not authorized to use First Order resources for this “mission”, so all the expenses were out of pocket, including fuel, repairs, and any information gathering he had to do. He had his own money, but fuel would eat all of it if he did not find Ren quickly.

The flight suit he was wearing was his own, commissioned years before as part of some sort of pageantry for a fleet dedication ceremony. He was fortunate the suit still existed in this reality, along with the section of the TIE fleet that had been unveiled that day.  He resigned himself to wearing it for several days as he zipped and secured the front.  He had very rarely worn anything aside from a uniform in his life, and the somewhat loose, heavy suit felt foreign against his skin, the coarse fabric chafing against his elbows and thighs.

His research into Ben Solo on the First Order networks had revealed little. He found the same New Republic propaganda that he’d viewed endlessly as a boy - the same holos of young Ben Solo at the side of Luke Skywalker, or with other young Jedi students, in shows of power, positive messages about the way the New Republic was growing, parades, pageants.  Endless happy moments engineered to make the average New Republic citizen feel safe and secure.

One holo was recorded during a celebration on the grounds of Luke Skywalker’s Jedi school. Hux hadn’t watched this or any of the other Ben Solo holos after meeting the real thing. But he’d watched this one so many times before they met that he still knew exactly where in the video to catch glimpses of Ben, who stood back from the holorecorder and gave a small smile whenever anyone turned to speak to him. He was sixteen, and he looked so _young_.

He also looked happy. At the end of the vid, Luke Skywalker threw an arm around his shoulder, and a ten-year-old Jorah Ren grabbed him around the waist. Jorah stretched up and gave Ben an affectionate kiss on the cheek. Ben laughed, pulling away, and Skywalker rubbed his hand affectionately against the top of Ben’s head, mussing his too-short hair. Ben had closed his eyes, one awkwardly large sixteen-year-old hand pushing Jorah Ren away, and the setting sun cast everything in red-orange, nearly hiding the flush on his cheeks.

Hux had been obsessed with this video when he was younger, watching it over and over again. He’d had his plan to recruit Ben even then, and he’d told himself that this holovid was important evidence of how he lived as a Jedi student. But really, it was one of the few holos where Ben seemed relaxed. Hux had imagined himself countless times at this party, what he’d whisper to Ben, how he’d laugh, what they’d do afterward, what he could say to make Ben give this up and come with him.

The holovid stopped, quitting back to the search list Hux had been viewing. Eventually, the screen turned dark from inactivity. Hux continued to stare at it, seeing nothing. It was the only vid he watched.

But it was just as Snoke said. Ben Solo disappeared from all the news feeds and gossip columns fourteen years ago, almost exactly when he would have joined the First Order.

Hux pushed down his fear when the research turned up nothing. Ren was somewhere. Hux just needed to find him. He existed, of course, because otherwise Hux would be driven mad by this alternate, more failure-ridden reality he had woken up to, with no power and no influence and no Kylo Ren.

He just needed to tap into the more voluminous and informative New Republic news feeds, and he needed a starting place. Where was Ben Solo most likely to be? Hux sifted through the scant memories that Ren had shared with him about his childhood, but they were few and far between. Ren’s feelings of betrayal concerning his family had not lessened over the years, and he rarely spoke casually about his past.

Once, he’d complained about Coruscant, and how miserable it had been when he’d visited with his mother. Hux had always wanted to see the former Imperial City. It was part of the New Republic, and would have information resources better than what he could get in the Unknown Regions. He decided to start there, as good a place as any, hoping that perhaps Ren was somehow there. Ren would know where Hux was likely to search for him, so maybe Ren would find him.

Though he could pilot the transport adequately himself, he made use of autopilot, using the two days in hyperspace to make what plans he could. He did what he could to conserve fuel, and made more practical plans, such as supply stops and rationing, and what ports were safe for him.  He initially planned to be very careful about his identity, choosing the right kind of neutral smuggling port where he could hire a slicer that would give him forged idents for both himself and his transport. But that would require a significant detour and fuel usage, and he decided instead that this version of the Order posed no threat to anyone, and he would be free to go where he liked.

Hux had a bad moment as he passed into Coruscant planetary space, his hands shaking in his lap as he tested his theory. No matter how much he told himself that the Order was nothing now, some part of him continued to insist that he would be blown out of the sky after broadcasting the end of the New Republic throughout the galaxy. But his transport was not stopped as he navigated through the aging planetary defense system. He also received no pings back. Odd, since that would indicate the planet was entirely undefended. Coruscant wouldn’t be.

As he passed into the atmosphere, the layer of buildings that completely covered the surface of the planet became more and more distinct. In the swathe of land visible on approach, there weren’t even any bodies of water, simply a grid of unbroken superstructures stretching to every point of the horizon.

Flying in closer, it was even more astonishing than Hux could have imagined. He’d seen holos - the buildings, the lines of traffic zipping among all levels of the city, the people packed in so tightly that it was difficult to move. He’d heard that you couldn’t see the surface of the planet for the levels and levels of construction, but hadn’t really believed it. The evidence in front of him was still impossible. He couldn’t quite conceive that the ground level wouldn’t be visible as his altitude continued to drop. And still, the closer he came to the surface, he could make out individual buildings, ones that his surface altimeter told him reached up miles into the atmosphere, with smaller buildings crouching between, crossed many times by level upon level of covered walks.

He marveled, pleased that he’d used the autopilot to land so that he could take in the scenery, until he got close enough to make out fine detail. And frowned.

Many of the breezeways and elevated walks between the buildings were collapsed, the broken spines of entrances sticking out everywhere. The buildings were dark in large swathes of the city, no light coming from within, large advertising and comm boards broken and still. He flew by one expanse that had experienced some sort of catastrophic failure, a messy melted black and gray crater that glinted in the sunlight, the evidence of burning and fire evident on the more recognizable remains of buildings that existed at the edge. Even past that, many buildings had visible fire damage crawling from empty windows and boarded entryways that led onto missing walkways.

Raising his eyes to the horizon, he noticed far less speeder and transport traffic than the holos had promised. Lines and levels worth of carefully-monitored vehicles had been reduced to the lazy flight paths of a few small crafts. There were none of the large public vehicles he’d learned to identify as a child. There were no wealthy, high-end personal transports, the two-seater variety used planetside in Republican space. Just a few trade vessels, similar to Hux’s own, crawling over the surface.

He scanned his instruments to check his coordinates, then for an update about any sort of shift away from Coruscant as a population center. There was only the information he already knew. The Republic seat of government had moved from here thirty years ago, and that was it.

Apparently, life had stopped for the citizens of Coruscant after that.

Unsure where to go, he landed his transport in the Federal District, choosing a public hangar not far from where the travel advisories indicated the large Central Imperial Public Library was. Seeing the rest of the city, its status as an “Imperial Library” troubled him.

The transport docked two levels below the top of the structure. Lowering the ramp and opening the hatch, he was hit with an ammonia smell so overwhelming that he nearly gagged, putting a hand over his mouth and debating whether to take a breather with him. Deciding it would look ridiculous, he left it, took a deep breath, and walked down the ramp. He paused at the bottom, glancing around the hangar level.

Colorful signatures in a variety of languages covered the walls, and the duracrete ceilings had collapsed in several piles around the vast chamber, exposing the rusted, twisted bones of the durasteel structure underneath. Trash littered the floor, food and broken pieces of tech and rusted-out pieces of ships and transports. Huddles of bodies were clustered around a few fires that were burning in several of the bays. The ships that were visible were mostly stripped of parts, none of them had been manufactured since the Empire fell. Nothing was space-worthy save his own craft.

“Sir?” A small Balosar child had approached him, and was pulling on the leg of his flight suit, its antennaepalps protruding from greasy brown hair that was hanging too long from the child's patchy scalp.  A scar covered the right side of the child's face, and there were layers of rags clinging to the child's thin frame. Hux saw gray stains where the child’s fingers touched his clothes.

“Sir, you’ll want someone to watch your ship here. Only thirty credits.”

Hux stepped back to free his leg and look at the child, then glanced around the vicinity. Several more children, human and otherwise, circled the craft, hunger in their eyes.

Hux hated seeing evidence of starvation. It was a weakness, and one of the reasons he rarely went planetside himself. He’d survived enough First Order famines in his youth to be sensitive to that, if nothing else. If he saw it, the old pain gnawed in his stomach, and all the terrible things came back to him. It usually caused him to be excessively generous with aid supplies, which always earned him incredulous looks from most of the officers. Not the ones who'd bee with the Order longest, though.

But he had no rationing supplies with him, only a bare minimum meant to get him from place to place. He could not help these people now, and he couldn't let himself remember the starvation, he needed to think about Ren. Even so, he couldn't help the low anger that simmered at the sight of these hungry children.

He glanced around, remembering suddenly that an ecumenopolis wouldn’t be able to produce its own food. Was the New Republic shuttling in resources that were being distributed? Were they evacuating the population of Coruscant to other planets, now that the central government was no longer here? Was that evacuation still happening, thirty years later?

He looked back at the faces of the children, who had crept closer when Hux hadn’t rebuffed them. He recognized the sunken cheeks, sallow skin riddled with sores, he saw how tired some of them were. He heard a clanking sound on the other side of his transport, and turned to see one scuttle away behind a pile of duracrete.

“Unnecessary,” Hux muttered, walking back up the ramp. He could do nothing now, he told himself, but he would remember this.

He set new coordinates for one of the upper levels of the old Senate Building, clicking through and silencing the warnings about it being a restricted landing area. If he was hassled by law enforcement, he could simply direct them to the state of the public hangers. Or pay the necessary bribe, which seemed a more likely course of action.

The domed Senate building looked merely old from the outside. He’d grown up watching holos of it, the large exterior polished to a metallic shine, countless dark windows glinting in the mild Coruscant sun. It had artificial grounds spreading out at the base, rich patterned tiles and a neatly-kept garden, with statuary lining a public path from the communal landing area to the main entrance. Hux had no eye for architecture, but even he had admired the Senate, in both its Imperial and Republic days.

Now, the tiles were broken and pulled up, the statuary was missing, and the gardens were dead and barren, the only evidence of their existence the broken, bleached trunks of trees. The metallic sheen of the dome was rusted brown-black, and many of the windows were missing. Still, it stood whole, itself a monument to the thousand years that the Galactic Republic had served the galaxy.

He landed the transport on what had likely been an expansive open-air meeting area, large enough to land almost a half dozen similar ships. The doorways and windows stood gaping open and empty, and Hux cautiously stepped into the cool interior darkness. The building was dead, the lights and HVAC not working, the air stale and carrying the stench of urine and unwashed bodies.

With no power, the adjacent library was a pointless endeavor - he would need a live port for that, and a powered transport to reach it. He’d have to do another search for an alternative databank. But now he was curious, so he continued through the halls of the Old Senate, blaster drawn.

The insides had been stripped for materials. There were slabs of marble cracked and missing from all the decoration, large gaps in the walls and floor where tech had been removed, the tiles paving the halls and stairways mostly pulled up, the remnants of the grout crunching under Hux’s boots. The fine doors and fixtures were all gone, along with most of the decorative glass windows and atmospheric shielding. Huge sections of wall opened on the sheer outside face of the building, which had also suffered various fires and scorching from the outside. Sniffing the air, Hux found that none of it had been recent. The rank stench suggested that the citizens of Coruscant used the Senate as a public toilet, or perhaps a morgue.

He stayed alert, listening for the steps of approaching beings. He stuck to the outer rings of hallways, where the large and missing windows and open balconies admitted enough light that Hux could see any attack coming. Adrenaline buzzed through his system, though just being in the building was a thrill, even as the floor was strewn ominously with various bones from rodents and slightly larger animals, along with a variety of other trash and evidence that individuals lived here, off and on. Fire rings, the remnants of bedding, and empty ration packs also covered the floor.

There wasn’t much point to him being in the building if there was no power, but as long as he was here, he badly need to see one thing. He followed signs in several languages to the top floor, which was palatial, and covered in shards of broken glass from an expansive caved-in skylight. No one lived in the hall with broken glass, but there were open doors from the top of a round chamber in the center through which Hux could hear murmuring. It was distant and cacophonous, and he holstered his blaster, stepping to the doorway and peering through cautiously.

He stood at the top of the main senate chamber, in a public observation area. He looked down through the dark, frigid, expansive chamber, larger than even the ship manufacturing facilities he’d viewed. It was lit eerily from the bottom, where a city of various humans and humanoid aliens were sitting, chatting and conversing around a series of fires. The fires illuminated the pods that lined the sides, most of which were still intact. Some sat at the bottom of the chamber, destroyed, and others were occupied with entire families up the length of the wall.

Hux was struck by the variety he saw. Humans, Zeltrons, Balosars, even some things like Trandoshans, Barabels, and Rodians. There was even a family of bizarre equine aliens that Hux had never seen before. There were isolated family groups, and groups of like aliens together, huddled around fires. A group of Togruta were singing and playing several stringed instruments. A few children chased a feline around through the different groups. Several couples copulated in public. Several other bodies lied still and inert, pushed to the edges of the chamber. There was a large pot with a fire under it, but the pot appeared to be empty. There were groups of children huddled together, cold and starving, and Hux turned away from that.

Life was much the same, no matter where you went in the galaxy, and no matter what beings were subjected to.

Leaving the small city on the floor of the Senate chamber, he used his datapad to access the old schematics. The Senate Building contained only the main chamber and various meeting rooms. There was a separate office facility, and another spire at 500 Republica where the wealthiest and most renowned Senators had their quarters. An idea occurred to him, one that was worth the time it took to pick through the dark skeleton of the building and find an intact, pitch-dark walkway to the residence building.

His datapad had access to the historical records of the residences, right up to the beginnings of the New Republic. He searched to the end, and located the listing for the Organa-Solo family, noting where their residence had been for their brief stay here.

Hux wasn’t sure what he expected to find as he climbed through collapsed, messy debris to the open doorway of the small quarters, on one of the more modest levels at the bottom of 500 Republica. The family’s time here had been brief, relegated to several visits over five years. The light from his emergency beacon lit up the inside of the small chamber. Plants lay withered and dead in stone pots. A bedframe lay broken against a wall. Pieces of shattered crockery lay strewn across the floor. There was a large smear on one wall that looked like blood in the low light. Across another wall, someone had scrawled what might have been “LONG LIVE BELL” in High Galactic.

_”No, the Jedi school isn’t so bad. Coruscant was the worst place I lived. We had this little apartment, even though the building was mostly empty and there were better rooms than that one. I got out once, and walked through the hallways, going into all the rooms and looking at the old furniture and stuff in them. I thought there’d be other people too, other kids to talk to, but I didn't see anyone else that lived there. My mother was out running the galaxy, so I stayed behind in the apartment with a droid. I didn’t see her very often, but there also wasn't anyone else to talk to, and that was the part I hated most. The only thing I liked was the balcony where you could see the city. I’d make up stories about the people and transports I saw.”_

_Hux thought about telling Ben about the worst place he’d been, which was a derelict Star Destroyer that had oxygen flow and heat issues that regularly killed staff and children alike. The students had fought over the handful of ration bars that were flavorless, but would make you less tired, and therefore strong enough to beat up the other kids next time the bars were available._

_The fact that Ben was complaining about_ Coruscant _almost made him angry. But Hux was also fascinated by Ben Solo’s life, and what it was like to be a celebrity. He wondered if Ben Solo had ever been cold and tired. But it was the wrong thing to ask._

" _You made up stories, or pried into their lives with your powers?” he asked instead, smirking as he turned his head to look at Ben’s profile on the pillow_.

_The corner of Ben’s mouth pulled up, and he gave Hux a sidelong glance, his face still pointed at the ceiling. “I’m flattered that you think I could read someone’s mind from miles away at age five. Mostly all I could do was cry for my mother. She was the only person I knew.”_

” _How mature. I’m glad you grew out of that.”_

_"What, like you didn’t cry for your mother when you were five?”_

_Hux paused, hands shoved underneath the pillow, staring up at the dark ceiling, considering how to answer. It was dark, and he was comfortable, and he was in control of his life. Honesty was the best._

_”No. I never cried for my parents.”_

Hux crunched across the broken pottery, not sure what he expected to find in these rooms. He stepped onto the balcony of Ren’s memory, looking out across the city that stretched as far as the eye could see. The sun was low in the sky, but something had clearly gone wrong with the environmental controls. A gray haze sat low over the skyline, obscuring most of the lower levels. The air was oppressively hot and dry, and Hux licked his lips in response.

The extra layer of smog lit the sky up a brilliant red-orange. It wouldn’t have been the sunset that Ren saw as a boy.  Hux didn't see a single being stirring among the buildings.

He turned and left. Nothing in the rooms here belonged to the Organa family. They had vacated a long time ago. He let the light of his emergency beacon lead him back on the long walk to the ship.

 

* * *

 

Hux hopped around the surface of the planet, burning both fuel and time. The environmental controls were out planet-wide, and he had yet to find a place to land where his transport would be safe overnight, so he simply kept it airborne. Even if there was a place to land, with no environmental controls there would need to be a place with power, where he wouldn’t freeze to death. His uncomfortably heavy flight suit had some heating elements, but he also didn’t doubt that he would be killed immediately for the suit if any sort of being found him. In a whole, clean flight suit, he stood out in a way that he shouldn't have.

Most of the Imperial data storage dumps had been decommissioned. He found one operational in a large building that still had power and HVAC that was inexplicably empty of beings, and he docked his datapad to download current events and hits on Ben Solo.

Ben Solo came up with most of the same results - he disappeared after 22 ABY. Hux downloaded all the data on the network about him anyway, choosing to review it at length on the safety of his ship. He scanned recent articles about Coruscant, trying to determine where he might find a semblance of a town, and safety.

Grand Vizier Mas Amedda, the right hand of the Emperor, had been imprisoned on the surface starting in 4 ABY, and he’d been forced to watch the planet crumble in front of him. Government had eventually fled, and with it the hospitality, high end services, the need for residential areas to house the representatives and their entourages, and all the other associated commerce. Manufacturing had continued for a time, but had slowed and stopped as offices were shifted off-planet. Eventually, it became pointless to manufacture on Coruscant, the aging equipment in most plants not worth upgrading. There were years worth of stories documenting the decline, most discussing the deteriorating conditions, the lack of supplies, the failing infrastructure. The stories trickled and dried up, the last general report to the New Republic made nearly three years ago. Over the decades, there had been organizations that attempted to evacuate the planet. Those had continued until after the last news source stopped reporting. Hux couldn’t tell if they were still operable.

He flew back to what used to be the Imperial Palace in the early light of dawn, resolved to leave the planet. Ben Solo wasn’t here, Ren wasn’t here. These were just people that the Republic had forgotten about. People that had been forced to suffer because they decided to punish Mas Amedda by making him watch them die. Mas Amedda had succeeded in killing himself in 12 ABY.

There was nothing at the Imperial Palace either, except the only other story Ren had told him about Coruscant. He landed on the roof and stepped out into the first light of dawn, the air bitterly cold even through his helmet and heated flight suit.

A garden was on top of the building, overgrown and wild. Surprisingly, no squatters were in it. He wondered if he’d find the same if he went down into the palace proper. According to Ren, it was haunted by the ghosts of hundreds of slaughtered Jedi from the execution at the end of the Clone Wars.

_”Have you ever been to a real city? Like, a big city?”_

_"Yes, Ren. I’ve seen a city before.”_

_Ren had turned to him, incredulous. “I don’t think you have. What, you’ve been to Scaparus Port on Arkanis? Coll Derazin on Exterven? The Golden Veral?”_

_”Yes, those. Amazingly, I have been to many places, as I do try to administrate a significant number of systems.”_

_”Those aren’t_ cities _. Those are all in the Outer Rim. And besides, I know you don’t leave your ships. You haven’t seen a real city. You’ve probably never seen Coruscant. Or even Coronet City on Corellia.”_

_”Ah. I see. It can’t be a real city unless it’s Republican. Then you’ll recall that I’ve seen Republic City on Hosnian Prime.” Hux had thought about it a moment, realizing that Ren was correct, and that was indeed the largest city he’d seen. He had frowned, staring down at his datapad, unwilling to concede the point._

_Ren had made a low, dismissive noise. “Yeah, I remember. Republic City is nothing, though.” He had looked across the horizon from the third-story window of their quarters on Nedric, where the view of the city they were in was foggy and mostly obscured. He’d had a distant look on his face, not seeing it. “But no. It’s not that they have to be Republican. It’s just that you don’t know how big a city can get when it's a hub. You don't realize just how many people and businesses are involved.” Ren had turned to him, a considering look on his face. “You can’t know.”_

_”Because holorecords don’t exist. Also, I do not, myself, facilitate intergalactic trade every day of my life.”_

_Ren had shaken his head, turning back to the window, crossing his arms and leaning against the sill. “It’s not the same at all. You can’t understand until you’ve seen it. The scale is… massive.”_

_”Thank you for this lesson on New Republic propaganda, Ren.”_

_Ren had turned back around. “It’s not a_ good _thing, Hux. It’s bad. Really bad. Population centers like that are miserable. People fall through the cracks.”_

_Hux had recognized some of the lines he’d tried on Ben Solo years ago, and said nothing._

_”Coruscant is… not like the holos. It was falling apart even when I was there, which was…” His face had darkened, and Hux had recognized the edge of the temper he always had when he talked about his family. Ren had visibly struggled to move past it. Neither of them had looked at each other. Hux had interjected, bored, not wanting Ren’s mood to ruin the evening._

_”It was miserable. Wretched. The worst thing. Inspired you to do better. All of that.”_

_”Yeah.” Ren had seemed to calm, his thoughts shifting as he had looked back out the window. “But I guess… the thing I remember most about Coruscant was… the last day I was there. We-” Ren had cut himself off, and gripped the windowsill hard enough that it creaked. “You know, my uncle and I,” he had said, in a voice affecting fake calm, and Hux had looked up, surprised. Ren had never spoken so calmly of Luke Skywalker._

_Ren had struggled, but continued. “He took me from there, because my mother couldn’t watch me anymore. But before we went, we visited the Imperial Palace. I’d never seen it before. It was closed to the public, but not to Uncle Luke, so we were the only ones there. It was… astonishing. You can’t understand how big it is, unless you’ve seen it yourself.”_

_”I’m just too backwards to understand.” Hux had taken offense to Ren’s repeated insistence that he couldn’t understand simple scale, but he had played along with this calm recollection, his datapad going dark in his lap as he had given his attention to Ren._

_”Yes,” admitted Ren, which had surprised Hux. Ren had usually either picked a fight or backed off, insisting that Hux didn’t understand. Ren continued without doing either. “I’ve seen a lot of things. But I’ve still never seen anything as amazing as the old Jedi Temple at Coruscant, and what the Emperor did to turn it into the palace. It’s the most amazing building in the galaxy. How big it is, the decoration inside, the history, what I felt walking through it. Everything.”_

_Absurdly, irrationally, Hux had been outrageously jealous. He could easily imagine it being all those things, but he would never have reason to go there, unless he blazed a path of destruction to the Core Worlds. “Tell me all about it, Ren,” he had gritted out, turning back to his datapad and doing everything he could to visibly ignore him._

_”No. It’s not the same.”_

_”So you’ve said. Repeatedly.”_

_”It’s closed, like I said, but they don’t have problems with people breaking and entering, like some of the other old Imperial buildings. It’s… I mean, it’s the Imperial Palace, and the Jedi Temple before that, but no one wants to go in. Apparently it’s haunted.” He had laughed weakly, leaning back against the window. “It is. I felt it. A lot of people died there. I saw a holo, too…” When Ren hadn’t continued, Hux had looked up, and found that Ren had been staring at him._

_“A holo of what?”_

_Nothing. Nevermind.” His tone grew intentionally light, and he began mocking Hux. “You’d see, if you ever went there. I know you won’t.”_

_Hux had rolled his eyes, exasperated, and had made a show of going back to his datapad. “Yes, of course. I’m too afraid of the ghosts roaming the halls of the Imperial Palace. I’ve heard that if you go on Foundation Day, Palpatine comes out of the woodwork and strangles you himself with the Force.”_

_”Really?”_

_”Sure.”_

_”I didn't know you were afraid of ghosts. You should go. I’ll protect you.”_

_Since that was stupid, Hux hadn't dignified it with a response. After a few moments of silence, Ren had continued the story, still with the quiet, faraway tone to his voice._

_“On top of the palace, there’s a garden. Droids used to keep it, but they went dead a long time before I saw it, probably right after the Emperor fell. So the plants grow everywhere. And it’s huge, the size of a city in other places, because the Temple and Palace are so big. And it’s… fantastic. It’s like the most private part of the city. This spot of green, in a place where nothing else natural lives.”_

_Hux had looked up to comment, but Ren had been lost in his thoughts about the Emperor’s garden. Hux had wanted to make fun of him, but the look on his face… Ren so rarely looked peaceful, and these stories about his past so rarely had a happy ending. Hux had left him undisturbed._

Hux stood on the roof in the first light of dawn, surveying what had once been the vast and luxuriant gardens of the Emperor. They were huge, Ren hadn’t been wrong about that. There was too much to see from where he stood, though the lack of light did not affect the view, as almost all of it was gone. He could make out the corpses of many trees, the brown twists of vines run wild and dead, the cracked and dry plots of soil. There were crumbling stone benches, and statues with broken limbs and weapons, or that wept rust and oxidation from their metal faces and clothing. Shadows played among the dead plants. There was crackling and stirring as Hux passed the plots, the crunch of dried branches and leaves underneath his boots. He wasn’t about to go into the building itself and investigate whether it was haunted, but if it had been anything like the roof garden was now, he could understand what Ren had been trying to say. It had obviously been marvelous and opulent in its prime, and Hux wondered what Ren had seen, when it had run rampant with the environmental controls at optimum.

The species that couldn’t take the extreme temperatures and dryness of Coruscant’s now-natural atmosphere had long ago withered and died. There were several species of succulent and evergreen growing that had multiplied and begun taking over, the largest firs reaching hundreds of meters in the air, their roots cracking the delicate porcelain paths and heaving the stones above thick carpets of brown needles. Some of them dangled roots and branches over the neat edge of the building. Hux spared a thought about the structural integrity of the roof, but… really. The Jedi Temple had stood for so long. If any building could withstand time passing, it was this one.

The smell up here wasn’t as bad, not the urine and dust and pollution of… well, not the surface. Hux couldn’t even imagine what horrors had sunk down to the deep surface level. But this was indeed the largest building in the galaxy, still was, and it towered over everything else. Hux went to the eastern lip of the garden and looked out again, noting that most of the city lacked artificial light in the predawn, a pink glow just beginning to crawl over the horizon and light the sky. Despite the relative lack of light, no stars were visible. Hux frowned.

He had done as Ren suggested and seen the Imperial Palace. Ren was not here with him. He really didn’t want to explore the dark, allegedly haunted interior by himself. It had been foolish to do it in the Senate building, except he thought there might be something of Ben Solo left in his rooms.

Hux got in his transport and left Coruscant for good, setting coordinates for a nearby trading outpost where he could sleep, eat, and refuel.

 

* * *

 

Traveling from the _Finalizer_  to Coruscant, to a trading post, and then to Corellia wiped out a significant amount of his life savings. Which wasn’t much, admittedly - he didn’t collect wages with the First Order, just an annual bonus that was given to everyone, Trooper and Officers alike. No one, including Hux, was in the Order for personal gain. But it was more of a hazard than he’d realized, traveling the galaxy out of his own pocket. He regularly calculated fuel and trading in as part of regular operating expenses for the army. In the context of one person moving across space, the cost was horrifying. Of all the things he was bitter about Snoke withholding for this mission, credits were the worst. He’d done so much to earn for the Order over the years. Snoke seemed to have his own exhaustible supply of credits, and had never questioned Hux on spending before this.

But it was fine. He’d find Ren, and they’d both go back, and all of this would be fixed. He would never need his personal funds again.

The archived Ben Solo holos from Coruscant were a dead end. Hux watched all of them studiously, but they were all young Ben Solo, and they pulled at something inside him that wasn’t currently useful. He watched each of them once to make sure they contained no new information, then turned them all off. He couldn’t bring himself to delete them.

Corellia felt like more of a lead than Coruscant had, and Hux’s confidence rose. Ren had told him about living on Coruscant, and had never spoken of Corellia, but Hux felt sure he could find information on Ben Solo here. It had always been frequented by Han Solo, and there were busy trading ports full of cantinas and gossip. Someone would know about Han Solo’s son. If Ren wasn’t here with his father, it would only be a matter of learning where he was and making one more trip with the last of his credits.

Hux did a search on the main continent for a likely port to land in outside Coronet City. While scanning locations, he noticed the absence of Sabina Engineering, which should have had active landing facilities and a small manufacturing village around it. He did a deeper search to find the site, and he decided to start his search there. The Corellian sun had just set on the last of the main continent, and the beginning of prime time in the Corellian population centers had begun.

Sabina Engineering had been the largest producer of the First Order fleet. They were an offshoot of Corellian Engineering Corporation, and controlled by the TechnoUnion. Sabina Engineering had existed for hundreds of years, with top-rate engineers and cutting edge tech that specialized in combat. As far as Hux knew, they’d provided warships to the Republic, the Separatists, the Empire, the New Republic, the Resistance, and the First Order. They were equal opportunity profiteers, and Hux appreciated their neutrality.

They obviously weren’t profiting off much at the moment.

He walked up the cracked path to the front of the facility, which was boarded and derelict. This wasn’t a symptom of the planet - speeders hummed overhead, and Hux had needed to dodge large transports hauling materials and capital ship sections to the larger CEC orbital facilities. There were streams of tourists, smugglers, gamblers, and whoever else came to the thriving surface of Corellia, all served by a constant buzz of comms and the visual eyesore of thousands of giant ads, signage, and screens littering the landscape. He didn't have the sense of uncanny quiet and stillness creeping through his body that he experienced whenever he went planetside.  Corellia's very soil hummed with activity, its air buzzed with the noise of billions of residents.

No. Sabina Engineering was the only dark spot on this continent. As Hux took in the sight of the massive, dark facility, he thought about why.

The First Order that existed now hardly ordered ships. There was no Resistance. The New Republic made it a habit to stay peaceful, and forced member nations to leave themselves undefended.

Which meant that there was no war to make. So this facility didn’t produce ships, because the wars that Hux waged didn’t exist. He gazed out along the dark, empty building wings in the twilight and saw several of the rolling dock doors standing open, revealing toppled crates and rusted engine parts that were Imperial or earlier.

Hux could walk through the broken gate and up to the factory, but there was no point. He knew why it didn’t exist now, even though he’d authorized an order for twenty more interceptors just last week. This factory didn’t exist, and Hosnian Prime, along with billions of people, did.

It was cheaper to take transports between the cities, so he grabbed one and rode an hour to Hi-Lo, the largest casino on the planet, and bought a drink to nurse at the bar. He was still wearing his heavy black flight suit, and he blended in well with the smuggling and trading traffic in the dim, garish chamber that made up the main floor.

He knew the types he needed to connect with. Someone who could get him information on Ben Solo, but he wasn’t sure what type of scum he needed, or how to tell them apart. A smuggler? An information broker? Who was what?

The bartender, a large Besalisk, eventually saved him the trouble, tapping him on the shoulder.

“Flyboy. You look lost, or like someone stood you up. What you need in the Hi-Low?”

Hux narrowed his eyes, knowing this would cost him. But it might be faster. “I need information.”

“A little broad, buddy. What you looking for? Spice? A job? Sex? Money?”

“I need-” He closed his mouth. He needed Ben Solo. But he’d come here because he might be known, the son of one of the most famous Corellian natives.

 _Han Solo_. Who hadn’t died by Ren’s hand on Starkiller. And who would most certainly _know_ -

“Han Solo,” he pushed out, perhaps a little too eagerly. The Besalisk made a gesture with all four shoulders, then wiped its hands on its apron.

“That’s an easy one, flyboy. Eaten by rathtars, maybe ‘bout a year back. He ain’t been around since he, yanno, died.”

Hux clenched his jaw. Han Solo had died anyway. A hysterical laugh nearly escaped him. Ren had tortured himself _so much_  over his death, and he had died anyway. What a… when Ren found out-

Ren.

“I actually need his son, Ben Solo. I’ve been looking for him.”

“Ben Solo the Jedi.” The Besalisk crossed its lower set of arms, using one of the top set to lean against the bartop, the other to push against its broad lips. “Don’t get many Jedi in here.”

“I imagine not,” Hux answered thinly.

“Yeah, listen though. There’s a place, used to be where Han Solo drank. Bragged all the time about his boy in there. Probably brought him in at least once. They knew the Solo family real good. They’d probably know all about Ben Solo.”

Hux leaned forward. “Fine. I need to go there. What’s the name, and where is it?”

“Hmm. Havin’ trouble rememberin’ suddenly, flyboy.” His palm on the bar turned upward, in the universal sign of a bribe. Hux sighed, and slipped him a few credits.

“Stingy. It’s the Norwen.”

“And _where_.”

“That costs more than three credits, pal.”

Hux slipped him ten.

“Not quite how it works either. But I can’t smell much money on you. You seem an edgy, fanatical type. Stick too far up your ass to give and take. It’s over in Jedeen, about thirty klicks south’a here.”

Hux pushed the glass toward him, still half full, along with another few credits for the tab. “Don’t quit your day job.”

“Hey. Keep fightin’ the good fight, flyboy. Hope you find the Solo kid.”

 

* * *

 

Annoyingly, this started a long series of bribes in a network that was clearly meant to benefit the bartending staff on the main Corellian continent. He burned a lot of credits greasing palms and paying fares on transports before he finally lost patience in one of the dark, seedy, identical bars that he’d been traveling through since the casino.

“This is the _sixth_  establishment that's served me weak, watered-down whiskey. On a planet that’s supposed to be _famous_  for it.” Hux was leaning across the bar, growling into the face of an unimpressed Rodian. “If you tell me one more time that _another place_  was Han Solo’s favorite bar, I will take that water tap, shove it down your throat, and pull it out whatever orifice is closest to your brain, because it’s obviously to me that you _don’t use it_.”

“Hey rimmer, you’re the one fallin’ for it.”

 _Rimmer_  was an unfortunate nickname that had something to do with his accent, which was apparently uncommon here.

“ _Certainly_  there is someone on the surface of this planet that saw Han Solo before his death. I’m told this was his home base. Either you know this person, and you tell me, or you do not, and I move on.”

“I think the lesson you’re failing to learn, rimmer, is that you ain’t payin’ enough to know.”

Hux grit his teeth, knowing that shooting this alien through the head would land him in a position he wouldn’t care for.

“ _How much_.”

“A hundred.”

“And what will that buy me.”

“A name.”

“I have a name. Ben Solo.”

“Someone who can tell you about him. One of Han’s old pals.”

“Will I also know how to find this person, tonight, if I pay you one hundred credits?”

“Yeah. They’re here. I just have to point you.”

“That seems like too little work for one hundred credits. What else are you going to do for me?”

“Hey, it’s a seller’s market right now, as far as off-worlders looking for Han Solo’s son are concerned. You can find him yourself if you want.”

Hux pulled his blaster out of its holster, aimed it at the bartender, then, keeping eye contact, fired it into the ceiling. The bar fell into silence, though Hux wasn’t fooled. They were merely curious. He turned and indulged them.

“Who here knew Han Solo?” He tried to use his best authoritative tone.

"He's dead, he can't pay no more," someone called out helpfully.

"I need to know about him. I don't need his credits."

A tall Sullustan in a dirty brown tunic with black gloves and a silver chain around its neck stood up and said something in its own language. Hux clenched his jaw again and pointed.

“What did that mean?”

The bartender tapped him on the shoulder. “It means that you have to pay me one hundred credits for my translation services.”

Hux looked between the Sullustan and the bartender, the rest of the bar quickly losing interest and going back to their scattered conversation.

Hux paid the bartender the one hundred credits, then bought the Sullustan a drink, as advised.

 

* * *

 

“You knew Han Solo?”

“Yes, he was a great friend. A member of the Rebellion. Piloted ships for us.”

Hux suppressed a smirk at the reduction of Han Solo’s role. “And he had a family, correct?”

The Sullustan waved a hand in the air. “Yes, though as humans reckon things, I’m told it wasn’t quite right. He and Lady Organa had a son. They loved each other very much, but did not live together. He spoke of his son often, but saw him rarely.”

“Did you meet his son?”

“Yes, on Hosnian Prime and Coruscant with Lady Organa. When he was older, he lived with the Jedi Luke Skywalker, and I saw him often, when Luke brought him to celebrations. He was good. He was the symbol of what we fought for. Children, living in a world that didn’t know war. New Jedi.”

_The Empire needs children._

That had been a mantra when he was younger, when the Imperial remnants had been encouraged to procreate, when recruiting for children in particular became important. Hux had been a symbol, had been one of the only ones from the Academy on Arkanis, so he could act the part of the little Imperial. They had liked that. Both the officers and the troopers.

It wasn’t something he had shared with Ren.

“Where is Ben Solo now?”

“Hmm. Han spoke of him less often. He had…” The Sullustan tapped the side of his head. “A break with reality.”

 _Our lives are bound_.

Hux shivered at its phrasing, but kept his unease to himself. “A break with reality. What does that mean?”

“Not sure. He lived in a hospital after that. Sometimes Han went to visit him. He never got better.”

“When. When did his… break with reality happen?”

“Maybe fifteen years ago? Something like that.”

That would have been when they met. A cold prickling crept all over Hux’s body, and he clenched his muscles to keep from shuddering. The buzzing noise in his head, low and forgettable, intensified as Hux worked through the implications of that.

“Is he still… in the hospital?”

“Maybe. Han never said that he got better, and he probably would have.”

“Where? What hospital.”

The Sullustan’s flat, black eyes studied Hux. “I do not know. I don’t believe Han ever mentioned it. It always made him sad.”

Hux pounded his fists on the table and stood, looking down at the Sullustan, then over at the bartender translator.

“You have been most helpful.” He tossed another drink’s worth of credits on the table. “Your service to the Solo family is admirable.”

He left, still not knowing Ren’s location, but certain that he would get no better information on Corellia.

 

* * *

 

 

 _A break with reality_. That nearly made Hux laugh. He supposed what had happened to him had been 'a break with reality.' Had that happened to Ren? Though he still had no idea where Ren was, Hux was absurdly comforted by the fact that Ren had obviously been affected in some way by whatever happened to Hux. Ren would understand, and they could fix it together.

A hospital, presumably somewhere in Republican space, was not a good lead. Hux sat in the pilot’s seat of his transport and drifted in a loose orbit around one of Corellia’s empty moons, starving and nearly out of credits, wondering what to do next.

There was one place he wasn’t checking, but he didn’t want to go there.

Ren had been there, had lived there when he was very young, but had spoken of it rarely. He only knew slightly more about it than Hux, but still, he gloated about it whenever he could. Because Hux never went planetside, Hux never saw cities, and Hux didn’t know what _civilization_  was like. As if they hadn’t explored and pacified huge portions of the Unknown Regions and Wild Space. There was plenty of new and unique experiences to be had there. Like the nitrogen pockets on Yofirra that hadn’t shown on the scanners, and nearly wiped out all the ground forces, Ren along with them. Or the strange scents of the minerals on N-178. Or the bizarre light spectrum on Faunlo that produced colors that Hux had never seen before. That unusual visual spectrum was one of the few times Hux had gone planetside, in order to experience that for himself.

Compared to that, things like cities, large buildings… none of it interested Hux.

But Ren had managed to drag him planetside to a mid-Rim planet when they had taken leave together once. It had been out of Ren’s pocket, in theory, though he’d simply mind-tricked every merchant into believing he’d paid them. He seemed to enjoy petty thievery, and the amusement at the expense of the Republic was something Hux could condone.

It had been a trip to Dac, the home planet of the Quarren and Mon Calamari. All the cities and continents, the extensive manufacturing, the resources, all of it was underwater. Even in Wild Space, there was no such thing. Dac was one of the only places in the galaxy with this kind of civilization.

It had been a good time for both of them. Hux had enjoyed the novelty, and they had gotten an oxygen-supplied room underwater so they wouldn’t have to be encumbered by breathers. Still, Hux hadn’t slept well, hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the weight of all that water pressing down on them.

They had gone swimming in the Quarren equivalent of parks. They had gone to zoos, seen operas, done all of the Dac tourist activities. And it was all so _normal_. Hux had never done anything like it in his life, and had never seen an underwater culture before.

Hux was a miserable swimmer, which Ren had found endlessly amusing.

_”I thought you grew up on Arkanis. Isn't that a big freshwater planet? Lots of lakes and rain?”_

_”I left Arkanis when I was five. I_ grew up _on Star Destroyers with failing tech. This is more like the antigrav cutting out on the_ Subjugator _. That usually meant the life support had stopped working as well, which meant you had a limited amount of time to vacate that sector of the ship before suffocating to death. That was difficult without gravity.”_

_Ren had only laughed, and Hux hated him._

_”’Hux, you never talk about yourself! Hux, how’s come you know everything about me and I don’t know anything about you!’” Hux mimicked Ren's accent in a mocking tone. “This is why.”_

_Ren had grabbed him around the waist, and Hux had struggled against him, pushing weakly against his chest. “No, it’s just…” Ren had collected himself, and had squeezed Hux’s waist through the special pressure suit. “Tenna Ren used to like holodramas,” he had paused for a moment, and Hux pressed his lips. Ren never talked about the Knights of Ren before they were Knights._

_Ren's brows had drawn together briefly, but they smoothed, and the corner of his mouth quirked behind the clear visor of his helmet. “And I hated them, because everything was as bad as it could possibly be. It just… it sounds fake, when you say it.”_

_”It wasn’t,” Hux had snapped in reply, pushing away from Ren again. Ren had let him, and Hux cursed as he struggled to turn himself around underwater. Ren had maneuvered easily around to face him again._

_"How did you move fast without gravity? It’s harder than swimming. Did you just… keep pushing off?”_

_”I managed.”_

_The first time it had happened, Hux had been seven, and it hadn’t occurred to any of them that the oxygen would stop working. He had been at the edge of the failing sector, and older officers had come to collect them, dragging them past the pressurized doors. He had seen the bodies of all the students that hadn’t made it lying dead in the hallways when they re-opened the classroom area. After that, he’d read about how to move through gravity, and found that blasts of air did the job. He carried around pressurized cartridges in his pockets. He’d used them three more times after that._

_He could have brought all that up, and started a fight about Ren being insensitive, about Ren being raised a prince, and Hux could have rubbed his easy life in his face. Instead, he had closed his eyes, taken a breath, then opened them to see Ren’s smirk, his clear amusement. Hux had smirked back._

_”I learned how not to do the work myself, of course.” He had reached out and grabbed the weighted belt around the waist of Ren’s suit, then wrapped his arms around Ren’s neck. “So either you’re swimming for both of us, or you’re renting one of those transports.”_

_They had been close, and he saw Ren’s smirk widen into a smile. “And miss seeing something you’re bad at? No. No transport.”_

They had to swim everywhere. Ren had enjoyed watching Hux struggle, or making him cling to Ren’s neck while Ren did it, the Mon Cala watching curiously as they floated by.

Hux went to Lorotta, the second-largest city on the planet with spaceport facilities, spending nearly the last of his credits to dock his ship. He donned the provided breathing apparatus, wetsuit, and gear, patiently standing in one of the airlocks and letting the chill water creep up his legs as the pressure stabilized and he made sure the rented equipment worked.

It wasn’t the same without Ren. He had no wish to come back here, with or without Ren, but there was no getting around memories of Ren when the only time he had worn the gear before, he’d had to cling to Ren’s neck, listen to the sound of him laughing through Hux’s thoughts as he struggled and got nowhere.

When he’d complained about the chill of the water, Ren had used the Force to keep them both warm. Now, it was just cold, the equipment doing the minimum to keep the water temperature bearable.

Hux made his way very slowly to Lorotta’s largest public library and information database. The native Quarren and Mon Calamari streamed past him on the public way, the weird fluorescent pink and purple lights illuminating the unusual fashions and the rough stone masonry that made up the buildings below the planet’s waterline.

The library was an extremely unusual facility. It was a domed structure, the dome as wide as a standard housing block and nearly three times as tall, with spires that had docks and shelves spiralling up the length from floor to ceiling. The Quarren and Mon Calamari each had their own writing systems and mediums. The Quarren appeared to have an ancient physical media that involved braiding different types of plantlife together and patterning it to tell a story. These hung, drifting in slight currents, and were shelved using a system that was completely incomprehensible to Hux.

The Mon Calamari used illustration and pictograms as a kind of written language. This translated better than algae weaving to datapads, so there were numerous ports and datapad sectors where Mon Calamari lore and tech was stored and researched. But they also kept some records physically, carved into a type of rock that appeared to change color when carved. Hux paged through these, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. The pictographs went from white on the surface, to blue, to red, depending on how deeply they were cut.

But the illustrated stories were too mystifying to Hux. He stuck the flat sheets of stone back into their niches, then went to a centralized free access port. Hux’s datapad was thankfully waterproof, and he watched the screen light up as he docked it and accessed the general network.

The thing about Dac, and the Mon Calamari, was that they were close allies of the the Bothan Spy Network. The two were inextricably linked, the warlike Mon Calamari’s ships flying to wherever the Bothans told them to go. They were the underground New Republic military, and Hux knew they would still exist, even without the Resistance or a threat from the First Order.

The First Order had stolen information from the Bothan Spy Network on more than one occasion, and Hux had made sure when he left that all the encryption software was up to date, or as up to date as could be managed in this version of the First Order. It was enough.

The Bothan Spy Network was extensive, and renowned throughout the galaxy for its thoroughness. But it wasn’t a particularly _good_  spy network because of its visibility, and its information was relatively easy to slice as a result. There was just too much of it, too many ways to get ahold of it. Hux was sure more sensitive information was guarded better, but Ben Solo’s information wouldn’t be.

The problem was, he knew he would leave a trail. It would be obvious that the First Order accessed the network. He didn’t care. The First Order could deal with it. The Bothans or the Mon Calamari could attack them. Hux would have Ren, and if it was a problem later, they could solve it then.

He beat a fist against the console when he got a hit. He downloaded a profile on Ben Solo. Age, career, education, the history of his parents. A list of public appearances.

And a note. He had been hospitalized in 23 ABY. No additional information.

Hux dug deeper.

Current Residence: Republic City, Hosnian Prime.

Of course. Hux sighed, un-docking the datapad. He glanced around. They would likely trace the hack to this terminal within a matter of minutes. He couldn’t stay.

Because he had to go to Hosnian Prime.

 

* * *

 

He let normalcy and routine propel him through what he had to do next. He set his coordinates. He dressed himself very carefully and precisely in his General’s uniform. He made an appointment, speaking with a scheduling assistant, explaining very carefully that he represented the First Order, and that he was seeking aid for the Outer Rim. He explained how his organization helped people. He waited, and received an acknowledgment, then went through proper orbital entry procedure, found the guest port for galactic representatives and asylum seekers.

He was not offered guest quarters for his stay, which was unfortunate, because he was out of credits.

All of that helped him not think about the fact that he had entered coordinates to enter the Hosnian System. His ship came out of hyperspace near the neighboring planet of Cardota, and he let the autopilot carry him closer to Hosnian Prime. His hands began to shake the closer he drew to the planet, and the static buzz began in his thoughts again. He could not push down the ridiculous idea that somehow he had been tricked, someone had Starkiller elsewhere in the galaxy, and was about to destroy the New Republic with himself and Ren in the system.

Telling himself he was about to recover Ren and they could simply leave only made things worse. His stomach twisted, and he could feel his throat lock, his mouth go dry.

So he had to stop thinking about it. He put what he was doing completely out of his mind. He left his transport, he faced forward, his steps were precise and his back was straight. It was a simple meeting, with a troublesome representative. He'd done these before. He told himself this was the same, that only he could handle this particular problem. He made it through the colonnade around the entrance to the New Republic Senate building, did not look over to the fifth column, did not look at the grounds surrounding the building. He entered through the front door, into the large, open reception area thronged with people. He did not stop to see if he stood out, he didn’t look to see if his appearance garnered stares.

_It didn’t, no one knew who he was, he had made no speech, he had not destroyed this place-_

He smiled at a receptionist, saying all the right things, and was escorted to a waiting room. Waiting there by himself was easy. He let himself relax, running over how this meeting would go. The meeting, at least, did not trouble him. It was Hosnian Prime that he was having difficulty reconciling. As he waited, he let himself judge the decor of the New Republic senate, and he calmed himself with his familiar hatred for their extravagant waste.

The meeting room was opulent, and he assumed this was a lesser chamber - not one where they would receive a real head of state, or someone who had money. The walls were decorated in a soft peach color, and there were tall leafy plants in intricately painted pots in the corners that released a woodsy smell. A large bay window took up most of a wall, offering a view of the families and children that were enjoying the large park that surrounded the senate building. Hux made a point of not looking out. There was a table, complete with complementary tea. The First Order’s policy was to provide water. The First Order representatives poured themselves a cup and then did not drink it, to indicate that they were there for other reasons.

Hux sat at the table and drank the tea now. It was unlike the thinner, bitter teas he preferred, instead a red color with an earthy flavor. He placed the cup carefully back in the saucer, wondering if he’d be allowed more.

His shifted his eyes from the delicate china cup and watched as the doors opened, admitting Senator Leia Organa. Her hair was braided and wrapped around her head, and she was wearing a gray tunic, much simpler and closer to a military dress than what Hux had seen of other New Republic senators.

Her presence affected him not at all, he was surprised to find. He wondered if some part of himself would be intimidated by her, knowing what he knew of Ren now. She was, of course, the leader of both the Rebellion and the Resistance, a senator and policy-maker who had shaped the history of the entire galaxy. But she had had her chance, and Hux had taken his own and beaten her.

But he was not here for any of that now, he had to remind himself sharply. He was here to see Ren’s mother, though he had to deal with the politician first. He knew how to deal with politicians.

Hux didn’t need to sit straighter when she entered. His posture was perfect. He refused to stand, and she joined him at the table, seeming to ignore this act of defiance. She placed her hands on the table, folding them and giving him a warm, very fake smile.

“General… Hux, was it?”

Hux let his shoulders relax fractionally. His most invasive, insistent thoughts had been about being hit by his own weapon while on the surface of Hosnian Prime. But he also had a persistent and irrational fear that he would be arrested as soon as he broke atmosphere, or any time after. There had been the speech broadcast to the galaxy. The necessity of it. Starkiller.

Except that none of that existed, and the Hosnian System did. And no one knew him here. Not even Organa, the leader of the Resistance.

If there was a Resistance.

“Correct, Senator Organa.” He did not thank her for the meeting, but offered his own fake smile, leaving his hands in his lap.

Leia looked at him with dark brown eyes, the same penetrating stare that Ren had, and Hux hated it. He kept it to himself, even as his discomfort intensified as he felt her presence in the room, pressing against him. Because she was Force sensitive. Of course she was. Her and her whole damn family. Hux couldn't remember if he'd known, or if Ren had ever mentioned it.

She inclined her head, obviously feigning confusion. “You represent…”

“A few territories in the Outer Rim and Wild Space.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And the name of your organization?”

“The First Order.”

Leia was silent for a beat. “I see. And you are… an alternative government, in opposition to the New Republic?”

“I was not aware the New Republic existed in the Outer Rim and Wild Space, Senator Organa. I can assure you that none of the planets I represent were aware of its existence.”

He cursed himself silently. He had warned himself not to be hostile, but it was difficult to control his contempt here in the heart of the New Republic, even though he badly wanted to be agreeable. But some part of himself could not back down from this opportunity.

Leia blinked at him, obviously not expecting his bluntness. “I see. And your… First Order. It doesn’t happen to have a standing military? General?”

Hux raised his own eyebrow. “I couldn’t say, Senator Organa. There are a lot of confusing things in Wild Space. I’m sure you understand.”

Leia stared at him for a silent moment, then shook her head once, the false cordiality disappearing from her expression, her eyes hardening. She looked even more like Ren that way, despite the fact their faces otherwise looked nothing alike. “Let’s not do this. Why are you here, requesting a meeting with me?”

And oh, how Hux burned to answer that question. But he had to be very sure he would get what he wanted, so he started from elsewhere first. “I was recently on Coruscant. Have you been?”

“Not in many years, no. The planet was evacuated.”

“I was touring. I’ve only been to the Core once before, and I wanted to see the Jedi Temple in particular. I was… told there was a garden on the top, and that it was truly beautiful.”

She blinked at him again, unnervingly, staring at him with those eyes that seemed to see straight through him. He hoped she did. Hux loathed her. He wondered if Ben Solo had told her about his trip there, or if she could bother to remember it if he had.

She kept her expression cold and neutral. “Yes, I’ve seen it. It’s lovely.”

“I’m sorry to say that it isn’t much of a sight any longer.” He leaned forward slightly, putting his gloved hands on the table and folding them together. “The planet was not evacuated, Senator Organa. When was the last time resources were shipped in?”

The Senator leaned back in her seat. “I don’t have that information with me. What does this have to do with why you’re here? Are you asking for aid on behalf of Coruscant?”

Hux cocked his head to the side slightly, feigning a look of confusion. “Should I bring it up with the representative from Coruscant?”

“There isn’t one.”

“So… the former Imperial Center was left to rot, and the New Republic condemned every person on its surface to starvation? Or cannibalism?”

Leia shifted, though she did not break eye contact with Hux. “I can make a motion to the Senate. We can send a unit to investigate your claims-”

“Ah, I see. So you believe that not a soul dwells on the surface of the planet anymore? That there’s a chance you will send a probe, months from now, and that it will find nothing?”

Leia blinked again, studied him for a long moment. “Why are you really here, General Hux?”

Hux gave her his own cool stare, boring into her with his contempt. “For a personal matter, Senator Organa, and I hope you can indulge me.”

“That depends, General. And why should I?”

Hux made fists of his hands in his gloves. They creaked. “Senator, the goal of the First Order is to help and protect planets that have fallen through the cracks of the New Republic, which obviously isn’t prioritizing an ‘aid first’ strategy.” He tilted his head slightly to the side, his eye not leaving hers. “ _I_  believe that the residents of Coruscant need aid, Senator Organa. I also believe there is an entire infrastructure there for governing the galaxy. What you don’t want is the First Order arriving on that planet, arranging its shipping from the Outer Rim, and setting up a foothold in the Core Worlds.” He paused, and when she didn’t react, Hux continued. “I can’t tell you much about our organization, Senator Organa, but I think you would find this _deeply inconvenient_.”

Leia blinked at him, but her face did not change. He could not read a single thought or emotion from her expression or body language. She was good. She was very good. She could hide her thoughts just as well as Hux, and she was sharp enough that even he could cut himself. She was older, more experienced. The rumors said she had faced down Tarkin and Vader just before they blew up Alderaan in front of her. What must that have been like?

Nothing like what had happened on Starkiller, he was sure.

She looked at him with her expression that said nothing, and she finally answered him. “Let me get this straight, _General_. You are… what? Bargaining with the lives of the refugees on Coruscant, in order to get me to do a personal favor for you?”

Hux carefully reached for his empty teacup and feigned taking a sip, his eyes never leaving hers as his throat worked in a swallow. “That would be barbaric. Just as barbaric as leaving them there to die simply because they, or their parents at this point, lived there.”

Organa gave him nothing except that stare that was so like Ren. On Ren, it was considering, deadly. He thought it might mean much the same thing on Organa.

“What is this… personal favor, General Hux?”

And this time, he did break eye contact, looking at his teacup as he set it carefully in the saucer and arranged it with the handle pointing toward the large bay window, admitting the afternoon sun into the opulence of this pleasant peach-colored meeting room, in which Hux was hilariously out of place.

“I’m looking for your son Ben. I had…” He hesitated, the speech he’d prepared at this point failing him suddenly, because there was really no reason for Organa to give him what he wanted. This was desperation, and there was no way to mask it.

So instead, he used the Sullustan’s phrase. “I had a break with reality. The nature of it… I think Ben could help me.”

He let his face show nothing. That was the truth, and it was more than enough from Hux.

And it was enough for Organa as well. Her eyes widened, and Hux saw sudden recognition there. Suddenly, she knew him in a way she hadn't before. Her mask of civility vanished, and he saw the ruthless woman whose reputation he knew so well.

She slammed her palms on the table and leaned in, her presence a massive thing despite her size, her expression furious. “I’ve heard of your _organization_ , General. I heard that you're hiding a war fleet in Wild Space. That the old Imperials came to you, and that you’ll find your way to the Core Worlds soon.”

Hux blinked. “That’s not relevant to what we’re talking about, Senator.”

“It’s _relevant_ , General,” she murmured, low, still so dangerous, “Because I don’t deal with warmongering Imperial remnants that don’t realize that their cause failed them decades ago. I don’t do them _personal favors_. And I would certainly never introduce my son to one who shows up in my meeting rooms, claiming to be…” she raised her eyebrows. “Out of touch with reality.”

Hux swallowed his rage, though the static buzz in his head overrode his thoughts momentarily. He had deserved that, had thought the meeting would go like this, but the insult still hurt when he had offered her honesty.

She rose to her feet, staring at him with hatred in her expression.

He shot up, furious, his hands braced on the table. But he looked down briefly, the static buzz still overwhelming. He schooled his expression, swallowed, and looked at her again.

“Senator, I… very badly need to speak to Ben. We know each other. He knows me. He’ll want to see me.”

Her expression didn’t change, and suddenly, Hux wondered what she knew about it, about the two of them. Because it was obvious to him that the idea wasn’t new to her.

“He doesn’t know you. How dare you come here and…” She closed her mouth abruptly, the hatred flashing in her eyes, and she spun.

“Wait, Senator,” He reached a hand out, and all the things he wanted to say, all the right words, anything that he could offer her. The good times, how much Ren meant to him, what they had together-

_Their lives were bound_

-any of the things he could have said to indicate how sincere he was. None of it came, when he needed it so badly. It locked in his throat. All that he could get out was “Please,” in a too-loud, abrupt plea.

She turned to look at him, still obviously loathing the sight of him. “Good day, General. Rest assured, you will get nowhere near Ben, and I will be keeping a close eye on your… _organization_.”

Hux could have said something else. He could have tried again. But she had insulted the Order, so instead, he offered her a mock gesture of respect. “Will you be doing that with the full support of the Senate?”

She scowled at him, then left. He sat back in the chair, staring into his empty cup of tea, then looked out the bay window, into the bright, perfect day in Republic City, on the surface of Hosnian Prime.

 

* * *

 

And so Hux was out of credits and ideas. He had not found Ren, and he was on the surface of the planet he had been avoiding. He knew Ren was here, but he’d have to search every hospital for him, and there were likely hundreds in Republic City. He’d have to beg, borrow, and steal to get what he wanted, because he had no resources, no clean clothes, no clout, and nothing other than the memory of blowing this planet into space dust.

It was not helpful. Not when the planet was still here.

He left the Senate building, walking down a shaded path through the extensive park surrounding it, taking a seat on a familiar bench. From here, he could see the large statue of Bail and Breha Organa to the left of the main entrance, and another of Mon Mothma to the right, both dwarfed by the columns behind them, holding up the roof of the colonnade that surrounded the building. He considered the statues, shining bronze in the light of the morning sun, not thinking about anything. He sat straight-backed and regulation-perfect, his gloved hands folded in his lap, his hat hiding most of his expression.

After a moment, his gaze shifted five columns to the right of the entrance. It was where he had first met Ren in person. They had adjourned to the bench he was sitting on. Hux was surprised it was still here. He allowed himself a moment of complete and utter despair, because that had never happened on this intact version of Hosnian Prime. He forced his gaze away, up to the blue sky, and pushed those memories away.

It was warm, and his hat and greatcoat were excessive. He was sweating under the thick layers of his uniform. But he’d needed a particular look this afternoon, and he’d needed all the confidence his appearance could give him. He needed pride. Pride was all he had left.

Pride, and memories, and this planet, haunted by the ghosts of billions of people.

He was so sure it wasn't going to be here. Perhaps the _Finalizer_  had been too far away to view the absence of the planet, despite all the up-to-date imaging that Hux had used to verify. The news reports of its destruction were missing, but perhaps there had been a Republican blackout to prevent a galaxy-wide panic. His recorded speech was gone, deleted by Bariss, maybe, jealous of his moment of triumph.

All five planets were here. Hux watched children playing in a sand pile, wrinkling his nose at the filth. Those children shouldn’t have existed. The Rodian, walking her canid, shouldn’t have existed. This park should be space dust, the warmth of this sun the fuel for his weapon. The air Hux was breathing should have burned and dissipated into space. The place he met Ben Solo should have been gone, and he should have been with Kylo Ren in Wild Space.

He heard a chime, and knew it to be the fifteenth standard hour of the day. Time passed, and the planet still existed. So did Hux. So did the New Republic. And those people on Coruscant were still dying, only half a day’s travel away. All the planets Hux had worked to feed and pacify in his life, all the people he’d given a life and purpose with the First Order. All the good he’d done in his life.

None of that existed. He had nothing.

Time passed, and ghosts danced through his perception. People. Avians. Rodents. Buildings. The breeze on his face.

He couldn’t fix any of it. He would die eventually, and all these people would live on, and his life would mean nothing.

A shadow fell over him, and stayed. Hux ignored it. He didn’t even have fuel enough to get back to the Order. He would need to trade his ship for a series of rides out to comming distance of his tiny fleet. That ship was his, apparently the only thing that Snoke claimed he owned.

This was reality now. He was still certain, with every fiber of his being, that his memories were true. He could never doubt himself like that. But it wasn’t true for anyone else, and that was what mattered. Only Ren knew the truth, and they would have to deal with that for the rest of their lives. If he could ever find Ren without beggaring himself.

The shadow was still there, someone encroaching on his misery. He looked up past the brim of his hat, annoyed. He meant to order whoever was blocking his nonexistent sunlight out of his presence, but instead, he looked up into the disbelieving face of Kylo Ren, standing barechested and barefoot in the middle of a public park, wearing nothing but loose pants.


	5. Part One: Equitan - Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For various reasons, there is a two-year age difference between Ben and Hux. Hux was born in 0 ABY, Ben in 2 ABY, the events of TFA take place in 35 ABY, and Hux and Ren were formerly in 36 ABY. So the below story takes place when Hux is 22, and Ben is 20.
> 
> Also, there is some inadvisable sex at the end, where they decide to mind-trick Hux into not feeling pain so they can try fucking. Hux is on board with this, and isn't actually hurt, but it's still there.

**Fourteen Years Ago...**

 

Hux stood in the blinding sunlight of Republic City in Hosnian Prime, feeling more out of place than he ever had. He could feel the sun burning his skin, and tugged self-consciously on the brim of his hat. It was an older style without an insignia, one he’d hoped would be casual enough to blend in, but as he looked around at the flowing, colorful robes, he knew he stood out as military. He’d seen plenty of grainy, shaky holos of Republican life and newsfeeds, but he hadn’t quite believed that everyone in the city would be wearing _so much_  color. They must have entire industries related to dye production. The waste of resources was staggering.

Hux wasn’t used to this kind of intense heat, and the amount of fabric the beings around him were wearing also seemed excessive. All manner of wraps, tunics, long pants, and coats were being worn, and it must have been over twenty-one degrees outside.

Everything was disorienting, and he’d only been on the surface for ten minutes. The close, chaotic press of bodies as he wound his way from the spaceport to the Senate complex. The air against his face, the smells assaulting his nostrils. He was used to the feel of starship engines in the air and below his feet, and there was a disquieting stillness, even as the world moved around him in a dizzying way. Hux, with his pale skin and partial black uniform, did not belong here. Not at all. But there was something he had to do.

As he approached the main Senate building, doing his best to stifle the discomfort in his body language and facial expression, he glanced at the guards positioned near one of the entrances. They were wearing a kind of purple uniform with a headscarf, a simple single-shot blaster holstered at their sides. Hux wondered what purpose they would serve, if someone was set on forcing entry past them.

He was possibly more military than the actual Republic military, or what passed for it. He smirked as he imagined himself taking the Senate single-handed. It would be pointless, and he would likely be arrested (he wondered if they were as soft as propaganda suggested - were he to attempt such a thing in First Order space, he would be executed on the spot). He had a monomolecular blade sheathed in his boot, but he’d left his blaster behind, as he had no place to conceal it. He was wearing his shirtsleeves and suspenders with the pants and boots of his officer’s uniform. He might be able to conceal a compact blaster at the small of his back, but it wasn’t worth it. There was likely no threat to him here.

It felt like someone would discover it if he did try to conceal it. There were _so many_  beings. Not just human, but more aliens that Hux had ever seen in one place. In the walk from the transport hub to the public parks in front of the Senate plaza, he’d passed by, _touched_ , more beings than he’d ever come in contact with in his life. One would almost certainly feel anything Hux was concealing. He kept his hands in his pockets, cupped tightly around the mini comm that contained his ID information, the last of his meager credits, and the farechips he had purchased for transports back to his posting.

His clothing made him stand out, colorless and military on a world of beings in loose-fitting colorful clothes. He felt as if the thousands of eyes were on him, and yet his shifting gaze registered no interest.

He worried incessantly that he was wasting his break, that this was a wild nerf chase, that nothing would come of it. He had told no one of his plans, dodging the question every time it was asked, just in case he failed. Even if he did, what else would he have done with his break? Go to the pleasure planet with the other cadets? That was a waste of time. This would be instructive, if nothing else.

But he was certain he would accomplish his goal. This was a good plan. This, the seat of the New Republic, with its soft turf underfoot, its beige stonework paths, its colors and high temperatures and its thousands and thousands of beings - he knew about all of this before he came. He had read about it, had watched holos, and he was prepared. Perhaps not prepared for the _sensations_ , and hadn’t thought about taking in all of this at once, but he told himself that it was nothing.

He walked up to the main Senate complex, a sprawling two-story building of white stonework surrounded by a roofed colonnade with beings strolling in small groups around the covered walkway. Two bronze statues of Bail Organa and Mon Mothma stood tall on either side of the main entrance. Hux pulled the brim of his hat low over his eyes, then made an attempt to lean casually on one of the white stone columns to the right, far enough away to be inconspicuous. The others walking around the colonnade made it clear that this was a well-used public area, and he was thrilled to get this close. It was a serious security breach, and not something the order would have allowed.

As he got comfortable against the column, he pulled up the schedule he’d downloaded off the holonet on the way through Republic space. He’d used up a valuable set of favors back at the academy for up-to-date Republic holonews, and it had paid off exponentially. He’d verified it all on the way.

Ben Solo was here, and would be for a full week. He had made an appearance at the Senate today, alongside his uncle and one of the other Jedi students. The speech lasted until 17:45 HST. Hux had timed his arrival to be outside the main entrance of the Senate once the session had adjourned so he could very casually speak to Ben Solo. He didn’t know how long it would take for Ben to emerge, but he could wait.

And if it didn’t happen today, it would happen this week. Hux had all the info, except the speech itself. He frowned as he searched the holonet for a holovid recording. It would help with conversation if he knew its contents, but he’d missed the live feed from the Senate, and he couldn’t find any services which had archived Ben’s speech. Not even the usual Ben Solo sources. He allowed himself a brief scowl as he stowed his datapad. He could imagine well enough what a speech from the floor of the New Republic Senate was like. He could just pretend he’d watched it.

As he waited, the colonnade and park surrounding the Senate entrance began to fill with crowds of beings that had various types of tech - holorecorders? Hux hadn’t seen those types before. It must have been holonet coverage for various New Republic planets, planning on interviewing Senators from specific systems. The situation was better than he could have hoped for, since that delayed the departing crowd of Senators even more. He would follow the group and try to catch Ben Solo after the initial rush. Hux knew exactly what he wanted to say. He would begin with some open, vague questions about whatever his speech was about, then ask him about opportunities for Force-sensitive individuals from the Outer Rim at his school.

Which was also a flagrantly false conversation. But it was a way to get Ben to talk about himself, his skills, and his life at the Jedi Academy. And Hux could work with that, even with his insincere interest in the Jedi Academy. Ben Solo didn’t have to know his intentions. Eventually, maybe. But not now.

As he watched, the doors opened, and a mass of beings began pushing through. There were lavishly-dressed individuals pressed together in the center, smiling and conversing with one another. The edge of the crowd was fringed with more mundane and harried-looking beings carrying holopads, apparently some sort of assistants taking notes.

At the front, Hux immediately recognized Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker. Both were dressed far more plainly than the rest, though they were clearly the celebrities the holorecorders had come to see. Leia’s dress was elegant in its plainness, the simple white and silver of her robes and the neatness of her braids lending her a simple way to stand out while still giving her authority. Luke’s attire was more messy and homespun, less considered. But he didn’t need clothes to stand out. He was Luke Skywalker.

Winged beings took to the air, and there were flashes of light as the recorders turned on.

As if on cue, both Luke and Leia turned to the crowd, smiling and giving a perfunctory wave. Leia’s expression and wave were more practiced than Luke’s, whose smile was more boyish, his wave more casual. They stepped off to the side and let the wave of the Senate pass them as various beings stepped up to ask them questions.

Hux noticed a few more distinct knots of press coverage throughout the grounds in front of the Senate building. Several reporters surrounded an aging Mon Mothma, who looked near death’s door. Hux wished he had a blaster to put her out of her misery. She would likely thank him. A few more Senators spoke one on one with reporters. Hux recognized one as the leader of the Centrist party. The others he did not. They were all opulently dressed, their assistants, usually more than one, standing off to the side tapping diligently away on holopads.

Such a waste of time. Such a waste of _everything_.

Hux scanned the crowd from inside the colonnade, but could not spot Ben Solo. Hux didn’t think he could have missed his exit, though he had been looking at Luke and Leia. Perhaps Ben Solo was shyer than the holocoverage made out, and had slipped away through a different entrance, or simply lost himself in the back of the crowd. Hux glanced back at the door. It was more likely that he hadn’t emerged yet.

He looked back to Luke and Leia, unable to look away. It was incredible that he could get so close to them. He told himself this was the best strategy, since Ben was very likely to join them when he did emerge.

Hux squinted and leaned forward, making out the other Jedi student, standing several feet away from Luke Skywalker. Odd. Ben Solo really should-

“Did you want to meet the Senator?”

The voice was deep and resonant, and was close enough to raise the hairs on the back of Hux’s neck. He whipped around, startled. He was about to tell the person to fuck off, that he didn’t want to talk to anyone, but the angry retort died on his lips when he saw the speaker.

Ben Solo.

Hux’s mouth closed, and he stood up straighter, dropping his arms to his sides. He stared into Ben’s eyes, and could feel his mouth go dry, his throat lock around what he wanted to say. He raged at himself, told himself to answer Ben’s question, that this was a ridiculous first impression.

But it was. Just. He’d been planning this for so many months. And Ben was here, in his beige-and-white robes, loose and homespun, and his soft brown boots, his black belt. Exactly as Hux had seen him in the most recent footage, but here, in the flesh, so much taller and broader than Hux thought. They were the same height, Ben might have been taller.

Ben seemed unconcerned by Hux’s silence. He had a considering look on his face, edged by curiosity. He looked over to the side briefly, then back to Hux.

“If someone’s waiting outside the Senate, it’s usually to meet my mom. Though I guess maybe you want to talk to my uncle? He’s here today too.”

Hux licked his lips and watched Ben watch his mouth. He straightened himself up further, and pushed everything down. He was overwhelmed, and that just wouldn’t do. He hadn’t expected Ben Solo to take him so off his guard before he could even get a word out, and he needed control of the situation immediately.

“They’re both worth meeting, of course.” Hux turned to regard them, stuffing his hands in his pockets, summoning a bitter lie to smooth the situation over. “Heroes of the galaxy, both of them.” He turned back to Ben, hoping to imply a deeper meaning with his gaze. “But it was you I was hoping to meet today.”

To Hux’s surprise, Ben seemed discomfited by this, the emotion showing plainly on his face. It was a rather graceless reaction from a public figure like Ben. He watched Ben’s ears turn red beneath the curls of dark hair that covered them, and after a moment of being unsure he seemed to settle on dismay.

“Why would you want to meet me?”

“Are you serious?”

Ben scowled. “No one ever wants to meet me.”

Hux looked back over to Leia and Luke, then to Ben. He hadn’t prepared a speech for Ben’s benefit about _why_  he was popular. “You’re… one of the first Jedi students in decades. A famous Skywalker! You…” Hux’s sincerity wasn’t terribly genuine the further it was stretched, and this was pushing it. “You’re also the hope of the galaxy. A Jedi who was born into peace, and meant to keep it.”

Ben looked down, glowering, a hand combing through his hair, messing the careful style he’d worn to speak to the Senate. “Yeah, I don’t really do any of that.”

“But you do. Weren’t you just speaking to the Senate?”

Ben looked back into his face, anger and embarrassment mixed. The red from his ears was starting to crawl into his cheeks. “I didn’t give a speech. I’m not good at that. Uncle Luke talked, and so did Nella. We’ve just been to Howten. They’re independent, and the Senate was hoping that we could persuade them to join the New Republic by showing them our… peaceful ways.”

Hux knew Howten, and he knew exactly how Ben’s visit had gone. But he asked anyway.

“Did they join?”

“They’re still considering. They were nice and everything, but…” Ben’s eyes met him, and he looked a bit calmer. “I don’t think we showed them anything they didn’t know. Some of the ruling council was impressed, though.”

“With you?”

Ben frowned again. “With Luke.”

Hux puzzled at Ben’s self-depreciation. “You must be good at some of the Jedi arts. You’ve been studying for… how long?”

Again, this was a question Hux knew the answer to. But it only seemed to upset Ben further.

“Since I was five, I guess. Ever since I lived with my Uncle Luke.”

He cut himself off, and no further explanation came. His mood was growing worse, and Hux was suddenly sure he was going to walk away. He couldn’t. So he blurted out the first thing he could think of. “But you have to be good at some of it.”

Ben looked up at him, giving him a level, unreadable look. “The lightsaber forms. I practice those every day. The physical stuff. The fighting.”

Hux glanced down to Ben’s chest, then to his belt, where his unique lightsaber hung on his belt. He’d seen footage of Ben with his lightsaber, watched it to perhaps an excessive degree. He decided to admit to it, if only because it seemed like a safe avenue of inquiry, and he needed to keep Ben here longer.

“I’ve watched you with your lightsaber, you know, on the holonet.” He grinned, and it was mostly genuine. “That was actually one of the reasons I wanted to meet you. It was… impressive.”

Ben brightened considerably. “Really? You wanted to meet me after watching holovids?”

Hux pushed, hoping it was the right way to do this. “More than once. I’ve seen quite a bit of your demonstrations.”

Ben grinned, and Hux’s lips thinned at the way it transformed his face. The effect was alarming. “You thought I was impressive.”

“Certainly I’m not the only one, Ben.”

“They don’t let me practice with it in public very much.”

Hux knew that. There was precious little footage of it. “There’s some. I’ve watched it often.”

“It’s nice to know I have a fan.” Ben’s grin turned less genuine and more cocky, and though some part of Hux wanted to rebel against the hubris of it, he knew he shouldn’t lash out at the moment. After all, that was a weakness, and one Hux could easily exploit.

Hux gave him another considering look up and down. “You’re so good at it, it seems like they’d ask you to do it much more frequently. I’m sure people want to see it. Why don’t they let you do public demonstrations?”

Ben ran his hand through his hair again, and Hux saw more of the dark curls fall free from the slicked-back style. “I’m… aggressive, and I need to learn to center myself more. Aggression is not the Jedi way.”

“But I’m sure it would be useful if you were ever needed in battle.”

“Didn’t you hear? There aren’t any more wars.” Ben’s tone was light, his expression unreadable, and there was something about this that Hux wasn’t reading.

“There’s always another war. It’s not as if the galaxy is now an idyllic paradise.”

Ben snorted. “Well, that’s what I’m told, daily. I wouldn’t know any better.”

Hux cocked his head. “Do you want to hear about it?”

Ben gave Hux his own considering look. Hux crossed his arms over his chest, feeling the tug of a slight burn on his forearms. He wondered what Ben saw, in Hux’s plain white shirtsleeves and his black suspenders, his baggy pants and shiny boots. His burned skin. His narrow frame that was nothing like the muscle Ben had built up over the years. Hux had always envied that about him, how easy Ben’s physicality was in the holovids. Even after being surrounded by soldiers all his life, none of them were even remotely like Ben.

Ben interrupted Hux’s thoughts. “Where are you from?”

“Arkanis.”

Ben’s eyebrows went up. “That’s really far. Still Republic space, though. Have you ever met the Senator?”

His eyes darted over to the dissipating crowd. The senator was Carise Sindian, and he’d met her at his father’s side several times. Arkanis had fallen to the New Republic when Hux was a boy, but the Republic presence that far out in the Outer Rim was negligible. It was all but openly part of the First Order, though they still kept a representative in the Senate. It was useful, to know how things were going there.

He wasn’t sure she’d recognize him, but that was one reason that Hux needed to leave here with Ben before too much time passed.

“I’ve seen her at public appearances. I don’t think she makes it back planetside very often.”

“Can you blame her? It’s a long trip.”

Hux raised his own eyebrows. “I’m aware. I just made it.”

“To see me.” Ben smirked again, and Hux wanted to punch him, despite this being the exact thing he was here for. Still, everything in Hux rebelled against stroking the ego of others.

Ben continued, digging himself deeper. “No wonder you sound like that.”

Hux’s eyebrows drew together. “Like what?”

“Like an Imperial. You look like one, too. I heard the further out you go, the less civilized it is.”

“ _Civilized_?”

Ben shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never really been out that far.”

Hux felt his control slipping, and could do nothing about it. “You’ve never been to the  _Outer Rim_?”

“No, why would I?”

“Because it’s…” Hux made a sweeping gesture with one hand. “It’s a _huge portion of the galaxy_! I assumed that, if you and the other Jedi are the goodwill ambassadors that the propaganda makes you out to be, you’d be visiting the Outer Rim. Those planets need goodwill badly.”

“Arkanis does?”

This was dangerous territory, as the Jedi visiting Arkanis would be a disaster. Hux brought himself back under control, pushing down embarrassment over his outburst. “No. But elsewhere. Kinferro. Exlod.” Those were both Republic planets that Arkanis supplied directly, because all Republic aid was stolen before it reached that far out into space. The First Order escorted supplies from Arkanis. Hux swallowed the explanation, not sure how much anti-Republican sentiment Ben would take right away. He needed to build up to that.

Ben studied him in silence for a few moments, chewing on his lower lip. “Have you ever been to the Core Worlds before?”

“No, credits and transport aren’t exactly common in the Outer Rim,” Hux snapped. “But I’m here now. So I have at least that much more experience.”

Both of Ben’s eyebrows went up. “Experience?”

“Yes.” Hux was still in a bad mood, mostly from being called _uncivilized_. He needed to move on, but it was just so  _insulting_. “Something tells me you sorely lack most experience, Ben.”

Ben blushed crimson at that, and Hux wondered if he’d gone too far. If he had, at least Ben Solo would know not to call him _inexperienced_.

Ben took a step closer, and Hux frowned at him. “Do you want to explain exactly what-”

“Ben.” Another voice broke in, and Hux jumped, feeling as if he’d been caught committing a crime. Which was almost true. But not immediately apparent.

Luke Skywalker was studying him with blue eyes, unnerving in their intensity. His gray-brown hair had also been neatly combed back and styled for the Senate, and his gray and white robes were slightly longer, more layered and elaborate than Ben’s beige ones.

Luke Skywalker had also approached completely undetected. Ben’s head suddenly hung low, as if he were as guilty as Hux of… what? Having a conversation in a public place? Hux straightened, annoyed, making sure his usual indifferent mask was in place. Luke’s eyebrows rose, and he asked a question of Ben, though stared at Hux as he asked it.

“And who is this?”

Hux paused for just a moment, stunned at first that Ben hadn’t asked him the same question. He opened his mouth to give his name, then closed it, realizing suddenly that his father’s name may be recognized. Not wanting to lie that blatantly in front of Ben, he gave his first name instead.

“I’m Armitage. I’m visiting from Arkanis.”

“Armitage from Arkanis.” Luke looked him up and down, and Hux had a sudden urge to catch the next transport off planet to avoid arrest. But Luke’s gaze remained steady, his thoughts unreadable.

“I’m from that area of space. Tatooine, in the same sector. I haven’t been back in a long time.”

Hux knew it. Tatooine venerated Luke Skywalker, so sure he’d come back and help one day. The First Order kept the crime lords and slavers off the planet, but they hadn’t yet found enough resources to make sure there was enough supplies for the inhabitants to subsist comfortably. It was better than it had been, but they needed more. Hux kept the contempt off his face. Even just an appearance from Luke Skywalker would mean a lot to them.

“I hadn’t heard. That’s a coincidence, I wasn’t expecting to run into anyone from the Outer Rim here. Other than the Representatives, of course.”

“You weren’t.” This was said blandly, as if he sensed a lie in it somewhere. Technically, it wasn’t. Hux hadn’t thought about speaking to Luke Skywalker, had considered very little other than Ben Solo for this trip.

“Your accent is unique. You don’t often hear the Imperial accent all the way in Republic City.”

Hux felt his face flame, a reaction he’d always been able to control. But he wasn’t sure what to make of the subtle dig at his accent, twice in a row now. He knew it stood out, and he was terrible at covering it. He’d spoken to very few people on the transport in from the Outer Rim. He also wasn’t sure why Luke Skywalker brought it up, unless he could somehow sense what Hux was trying to do with Ben, with whatever Jedi skills he had.

“I like his accent.”

Luke turned, and Ben was staring, an insolent look on his face.

“Ben, there you are. I was wondering where you’d gone off after the Senate adjourned.”

“I didn’t go anywhere, Uncle Luke.”

“I see that,” he observed wryly. “We’re going back to the rooms to discuss the exercises in tomorrow’s demonstration, and review some centering exercises.”

Ben was silent, and the pause was long and awkward. He was staring down at the ground, then looked back up into Luke’s face.

“Armitage came all the way to Republic City to meet me. He’s never been to one of the Core Worlds before, and I’ve never been to the Outer Rim, so I wanted to show him around the city, and have him tell me about… Arkanis.”

The pause was obvious, and Ben seemed relieved to have remembered where Hux was from. He glanced over at Hux for a moment, then back at Luke. Luke frowned, obviously unhappy, and looked back at Hux in turn.

“You came all the way here to see Ben in the Senate?”

Hux felt his suspicion, and kept his face in his usual indifferent mask. He tried for politeness.

“Yes. I watched him growing up. They said he was the symbol of peace. And I always wanted to meet one of the Jedi.”

Luke’s frowned deepened. Hux wondered if his powers were better at catching lies than Ben’s were.

Luke turned back to Ben. “If you want to hear about the Outer Rim, I could tell you about Tatooine once we’re done with centering.”

Ben’s lips thinned, and he shook his head, long hair swaying around him, now almost completely fallen out of its formal style. He rarely appeared in the holovids so casually, and Hux wanted to touch his hair.

“No thank you, Uncle Luke. I’d like to be excused from this afternoon’s activities.”

Luke’s face hardened. “Ben, we’re not here on vacation. And why are you acting so formal? Just come back to the rooms.”

“We’re never anywhere on vacation,” he answered thinly, his patience obviously waning. “And I don’t want to go back to the rooms. I’m trying not to be _aggressive_  about it.” Ben’s face twitched, and Hux could tell his mood was crashing dramatically. He watched Ben’s face. He hadn’t guessed that Ben was so volatile. He was even more interesting this way.

Luke sighed, obviously used to this. “What about the demonstration tomorrow?”

“I can do those exercises in my sleep, and you know it,” Ben answered quickly, crossing his arms. His wide sleeves fell back, revealing his pale wrists and forearms, speckled with dark hair. Hux found his attention riveted. The tantalizing glimpses of Ben’s arms in the vids was one of his favorite parts of watching, and he was still having trouble believing he was meeting Ben in real life, finally, and that all the things he had obsessed over were simply in front of him.

Luke rolled his eyes, turning back to Hux, obviously resigned to Ben’s stubbornness. “Well then, he’s your problem for the afternoon.” He turned to walk away, clapping Ben on the shoulder as he passed. “Enjoy it, Ben.”

The two watched Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, the Hero of the Rebellion and the killer of Darth Vader, walk away from the colonnade. The front area of the Senate building was rapidly emptying of beings, leaving just the two of them. Hux kept his breathing controlled, reminding himself not to show any signs of outward stress. He had not been prepared to argue with Luke Skywalker, of all people.

He turned back to Ben, willing his voice steady. He softened his expression, his eyebrows arching.

“You actually want to hear about Arkanis?”

Ben looked down again, his face reddening. “Sure, if you want. Anything would be fine. I just… my uncle. He… I don’t get away from him very often.” He glanced at Hux, and in the direction of Skywalker’s retreating back. “I can handle myself. I didn’t need him to walk over and interrupt us.”

Hux decided to ignore the overly personal information. He was pleased that Ben seemed to be responding to… this, Hux’s manipulation, though it wasn’t quite going as he’d planned. Still, it was working, and he apparently had all afternoon in Ben’s company. He relaxed.

“Well.” Hux gestured awkwardly. He knew what he wanted to say, but the front porch of the Senate was not the place. “Do you have a place you like to go in Republic City?”

“Ah. No.” The hand came back through his hair as he looked at Hux from the corner of his eye. Hux resisted the urge to slap it away and straighten the hair himself, still wondering what it would feel like to touch it. Ben looked distractedly around the city, then back to Hux. “We don’t come here very often, and when we do, I’m always with Uncle Luke. We… mostly stay in the rooms. Doing exercises.”

Hux narrowed his eyes. “What about your mother?”

“What about her?”

“Don’t you spend time with her? Go to… I don’t know, a cantina, drinks, entertainment? To catch up?” Hux had no idea what recreation in Republic City was like, but he was sure it was overly decadent.

Ben shrugged, looking away again. “Not really. We holocall sometimes, but she’s usually too busy.”

Hux opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. He had a similar relationship with his father - he only saw him at ceremonies and formal events now, and got the occasional scathing message. But the less Hux heard from his father, the better. It was hard to imagine Ben Solo having a similar acrimonious relationship with his parents.

He took out his comm. “Well. We can get…” He glanced up. Ben was old enough to drink, but the thought of taking Ben somewhere public turned his stomach. He’d need privacy for what he was going to tell Ben, and he didn’t want anyone overhearing and throwing him in some sort of Republic jail. It was difficult to imagine a public place without a crush of beings around them, eavesdropping on everything he said.

“Maybe later,” he muttered. He stowed the comm again and looked around the expansive park grounds that wound through the Senate complex. A handful of families led children and little animals that Hux had heard were kept for recreation. He tried to imagine feeding a little canid when you could spend resources on something else, and realized he was staring rather pointedly at a woman nearby, making her uncomfortable. He rolled his eyes, looking around the colonnade.

Transports had long since swallowed up anyone important from the Senate session, and the last of the crowd was quickly scattering to the caf shops and cantinas that ringed the fashionable urban neighborhood. The park was brilliant in the afternoon sun, the trees throwing dappled patches of shade across the soft green grass. Flowers bloomed in fenced enclosures, some climbing trellises taller than Hux. Several of the trees were also blossoming, with brilliant lavender flowers that shed occasional petals to see-saw lazily down to the paths. There was an adolescent winding down one path on a slow, overtaxed speeder. One couple was on a blanket, chatting in the sun. There was a sand pit, several children of different species grubbing in the dirt with a group of adults looking on.

And several empty benches.

Hux held out a hand, gesturing to one near the front of the park, well off the path that led to the Senate building. “Do you want to chat here, then? Perhaps until the sun sets? We’re both already familiar with it.”

When he turned to gauge Ben’s reaction, he found Ben staring at him intently. Ben swallowed and nodded, licking his lips, his hands twisting in the loose fabric at the ends of his tunic sleeves.

“That’s fine. You mean sit down and talk here?”

Hux did sigh this time. “Yes, Ben. Follow me.”

He took a seat on the indicated bench, and much to his surprise, Ben sat closer than perhaps socially acceptable for a new acquaintance. Hux felt his face grow hotter. He was not prone to embarrassment, and he told himself that it was simply that the planet was too hot. Hadn’t Coruscant been famous for its planetary environmental controls? Clearly they hadn't installed them on Hosnian Prime. He looked into his lap to hide his scowl, removing his cap for a moment to push his hair back and wipe the sweat from his face. The style was ruined, and he hated Ben seeing him like this. He glanced up, and found Ben staring at his hair, his fingers twitching in his lap. Hux replaced his cap, humiliated, telling himself to think of something else, something more useful than how his hair looked.

Hux wanted to launch into his tirade about the forgotten Outer Rim planets, all the things the Republic was doing wrong. He wanted Ben to agree with him. He wanted Ben to agree with everything he said, to hang on his every word. That was the true reason he had come: to meet Ben Solo, and to convince him to come back to the First Order with him. It was a risky plan, but Hux thought it was brilliant. There were few others who could bring so much to the organization.  Recruiting Ben Solo had a dual purpose - Hux would then be able to work alongside Ben Solo in the Trooper training program, and he would also be able to enjoy the barely-concealed contempt from the likes of his father and the other Imperial holdovers when they would be forced to acknowledge Hux's accomplishment.

But he knew his fanaticism wouldn’t win him Ben Solo's friendship, at least not right away. Instead, he opted for more small talk, something in him wanting to make the moment last.

“You really don’t come to the capital often? I assumed you were here frequently. For… Jedi business. And your family.”

Ben twisted his hands in his lap. “They’re the same,” he answered wryly, not looking at Hux. “I live with my Uncle Luke, and we study the old Jedi texts. We sort of… figure it out together, Luke and me and the other students. We take turns reading the texts, and we debate endlessly on their meaning.” He looked back at Hux, a serious look on his face. “We can do that anywhere. It’s easier to study at the Academy, away from Republic City. All of…” He looked around, out at the skyline visible past the park. “Everything here is distracting.” He looked at Hux, and his piercing gaze, his brown eyes, pulled at something inside him, even as Ben said “I’m not used to all these people, it’s… hard being in this kind of crowd, in a city like this.”

Hux turned his head to hide his expression, not sure he enjoyed the synchronicity of that. “So the Jedi doctrines are up to the interpretation of the students?”

“They are now. In the past, it was all handed down, but there was… the Empire, you know, and all the Jedi were killed. So we do this.”

“You just make it up as you go?”

“Yes. In some ways, the teachings are suited to that. Apparently the old masters did the same thing. Let the students find their own way.”

“But the old masters would have known what that way was.”

Ben’s face clouded. “Luke was taught by them. He guides us.”

Hux leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs in a gesture far more casual than he would normally allow himself. “Do you not agree with your uncle’s teachings?”

“It’s… not that.” Ben’s voice was low, and he glanced over at Hux, his expression cautious, evaluating. This was personal, and he was trying to decide how much to share with Hux. “It’s that my interpretations are always wrong. Luke thinks so, and the other students do, too. There’s only a few that ever agree with me.”

“Wrong how?” Hux tried to imagine this type of classroom, and couldn’t. There was right and wrong, and nothing in between.

“It’s just…” Ben leaned back, stretching his long legs out in front of him. His pants were a dark grey, and patches of sun filtered down through the leaves onto the fabric. “The lessons are always about looking to yourself, making peace with yourself, staying in touch with life around you. Not just sentient beings and their thoughts and emotions, but all life, and that each life burns equally in the Force.”

He’d rested his head against the back of the bench, and he rolled it toward Hux. He was more relaxed now, less evaluating. He was warming to his subject, and Hux listened, attention rapt. “But it’s also… selfishness. It's a waste of time when we could be doing something else.”

“And you’re better at physical activities, I suppose, not the self-reflection.”

Ben smiled at him, small but genuine, and brushed a strand of hair out of his face. The smile transformed him, was nothing like the performance he gave for the holos. Happiness suited Ben, and Hux once again felt himself flushing. “Yeah. The mock fights, the exercises. The strength training. Actually doing things with the Force. I can do all that. I’m the best.” Hux wanted to roll his eyes at Ben’s confidence, but this was all new to him, and again, he suppressed the corrective urge he would have acted on were Ben a fellow cadet in the First Order.

Still staring at Hux, Ben continued, the smile still on his face. “We do exercises every day too. The warm-ups when we wake up, and some saber drills in the afternoon, usually. The warm-ups are something… I’m not very good at meditation and self-reflection, but I feel more in tune with the Force if I’m doing something physical. My uncle doesn’t agree.”

He turned back into the crowd, his expression clouding again. Ben’s moods were mercurial, and also plain to see on his face. It was fascinating that no one had ever told him to hide his thoughts. He was the son of a senator. It made getting to know Ben much easier. He was obviously pleased with his skills in the physical, and not at all shy about his strengths. His weaknesses were a different matter.

Still, Hux probed, curious about the way Luke Skywalker’s academy worked, more for himself now. For all the reading Hux had done about Ben Solo, there wasn’t much recorded about the studies of the Jedi.

“And most of what the other students and your uncle do are… mental exercises? Just the… discussion of the old texts?”

“Yeah. And we fall into the Force a lot. Sense those around us.”

“So that’s a kind of meditation? You mentioned earlier it was easier for you to do while exercising your body.”

Ben glowered and turned red, tipping his head to hide his expression from Hux. “Yeah, I’m not very good at the standard meditations. I get distracted easily.” He was quiet for a moment, then turned to look at Hux, a wary, evaluating expression on his face. “But I could try it now, if you wanted to see it. I could show you what it’s like.”

“The Force?” Hux frowned. It had always seemed like magic to him, a kind of religion. Maybe there had been something to it at one time, but he’d always been as dubious about stories of the Force as he had been about the ghost stories of Darth Vader.

Still, this was a rare opportunity. But judging by Ben’s wary expression, there was something here that Hux needed to navigate around. Hux held his gaze, trying to decide what it was.

“Yes, I’d like that.” When Ben’s expression didn’t change, he continued. “But I’m sure you’re asked to perform for others all the time when you leave the Academy.” Hux affected nonchalance, hating himself for giving it up. “We can do something else this afternoon, you don’t need to impress me.”

Ben’s expression softened, and his face reddened as he looked away. Hux clenched his jaw as he felt the thing inside him twist again, his skin flushing. He tightened his hands in his lap, feeling them sweat. He was nervous, and closed his eyes, trying to will it away. It didn’t help, because when he opened them, Ben was still sitting too close, and the moment was growing increasingly intimate around them. Hux wondered if Ben felt it too.

Ben’s head was bowed, and he shook it, his black hair shaking around his red face. He glanced quickly at Hux, then away. “Yeah, it’s usually the first thing I get asked. I've never had to offer myself.” His expression turned hard, and he looked at Hux, giving him the full intensity of his hard brown eyes, a decision made.

“They ask me to lift things, or to turn on my lightsaber, or a bunch of other stupid things that don’t matter. But that’s not the Force, not really. I want to show you.” His expression hardened further, and he looked almost angry. “I’m showing you because I _want_  to.”

Hux swallowed again, and felt his mouth go dry, and suddenly he forgot what he was supposed to be doing. “Okay. I want it too, then.”

“Okay.” Ben calmed marginally, but still looked far too serious for as casual as his offer had been. “Give me your hands, then close your eyes. I’m going to have to… concentrate, and try to pull you in with me.”

Ben’s voice shook on the word _concentrate,_  which he’d just admitted was a weakness. Hux decided the moment was something different for Ben, as Hux was increasingly having trouble speaking, some part of his mind lost in cacophonous noise of this unfamiliar experience, the intensity, the heat around them, the shade of this public park. Ben.

Hux gave him his hands, closed his eyes, and bowed his head slightly. “Okay. Do I… need to do anything?”

He cringed inwardly, because he didn’t think he could do anything else. He felt Ben’s large, calloused palms close over his hands. They were dry, as if this was affecting him not at all. Hux was suddenly disgusted by his own slimy grip, and waited for Ben to recoil. He didn’t.

“Just… try to think about me, and the connection to me, I guess.”

“Can you read my thoughts when we do this?” Hux asked sharply, eyes springing back open.

Ben looked at him helplessly. “A little. It’ll be more like… feelings. Sensations? It’ll be the sense of you as a person.”

Hux let out a shaky breath, thinning his lips and tightening his grip on Ben’s hands, finding it steadied him. He weighed the pros and cons. There was the fact that Hux was so taken with Ben that he could barely speak, and he wasn’t sure what Ben would make of that. More realistically, Ben might see… what Hux had come here to do, sooner than Hux wanted.

But this was also a unique opportunity, to be shown the Force by one of the most famous users in the galaxy. Ben had made it clear that there was significance in his decision to show Hux, and there was something in Hux that wanted to prove that Ben had made the correct decision. And it would bind them together. That would be important for when they left together later.

Ben angled himself closer to Hux, and he felt the press of Ben’s warm thigh against his own. Ben squeezed his hands again, and Hux nodded.

“Okay.” He closed his eyes and bowed his head again.

“Okay,” Ben echoed.

Everything around them went eerily still, and Hux tried not to focus on that, on the people speaking in the other areas of the park, the hum of transports around and above them, the avians in the trees.

He focused on Ben’s palms, the point of contact between them, the warmth between their skin and the way Ben’s palms were warming and beginning to sweat into Hux’s own. To his astonishment, the warmth grew stronger, almost burning, and he felt the stillness in the park around them spread, followed in its wake by a humming presence. Many humming presences.

“ _Armitage_?” He heard hesitant, in his head.

“Ben,” he spoke aloud. “You said you couldn’t read my thoughts.”

 _“I can’t, but I have to… show your mind how to perceive the Force. So I have to be here. Is that okay_?”

Hux clenched his jaw, something in him rebelling at the invasion of privacy, something else desperately craving more of this connection. “It’s fine.”

He felt the warmth from his palms spread over his body, through his mind. It was slow. A tingle, then a burn. He remembered he needed to think about Ben, not about himself, and he tried. He tried to imagine what Ben was doing to him, pushing whatever it was about his Force through Hux’s palms, through where their thighs touched, wrapping his mind around Hux.

It was overwhelming, and Hux found it suddenly, absurdly arousing. The amount of power flowing from Ben, and the fact that they were meeting at all, that Ben was so much _more_  and better than he had imagined, that this was so easy. In trying to focus on Ben, he suddenly imagined kissing him, and he pulled back abruptly, humiliated, yanking his hands from Ben’s grip. His eyes sprang open, and he found Ben looking just as shocked, backing away on the bench.

“I… yes.” Hux clenched his jaw, not sure how to smooth that over, nor if he could say anything that wouldn’t immediately make the situation worse. Ben seemed genuinely angry and frustrated, on the verge of some sort of episode. His face was red and he was breathing hard, his hands were now gripping the edge of the bench in a white-knuckle grip, so hard that he could hear the metal creaking. He wasn't looking at Hux.

“No. It’s just. I can’t do anything right. I can’t meditate.” Ben shook his head. “I should have known not to try. I can’t show you the Force.”

Hux opened his mouth on a possible response, and closed it again. His immediate reaction was to get defensive, deriding Ben for his interest in his thoughts. He’d obviously seen what Hux was imagining, and it was highly inappropriate. But Ben looked offended and ready to run away, and Hux didn’t want that. So he reached out and grabbed Ben’s wrist, feeling the tendons stand out in his grip, and did the only thing he could think of that might keep Ben in the bench.

“No, you did it right. I’m sorry. I should have warned you…” Hux turned away, his face flaming, not sure how else to frame it. Thank the stars it had only been the kiss, and not the other things. And part of him was suddenly well aware of how ridiculous this was. They were both over twenty, and it had been a _kiss_.

The thought sobered him, and he made more of an effort to dismiss the awkwardness. He cleared his throat. “I should have warned you before you started. I’m obviously an admirer of yours. In that way. It's inappropriate. You can ignore it.”

“I know, you said… you said you came here to see me, that you wanted to meet me and I… couldn’t even keep myself outside your thoughts, you saw-” He caught his lower lip between his teeth, and seemed so flustered that Hux pulled his hand back, not sure what else to do. He looked more angry than embarrassed, and Hux narrowed his eyes, telling himself yet again not to get drawn into what were obviously stronger feelings in himself than he had realized. Better to keep things to the conversational paths he had planned in advance.

“I didn’t see anything at all of you, Ben. I behaved poorly. I wouldn't have…” Hux turned his head slightly and rolled his eyes. Ben was overreacting, and he hated repeating his first apology, but if this is what it took, then that was fine. “I’m sorry you were witness to my base desires. I do try to control them.”

“Base desires?” Ben looked at him curiously, some of the color receding from his face, replaced with curiosity.

“We… saw the same thing, did we not?”

Ben frowned. “I was thinking about kissing you. Did you see that?”

A laugh nearly broke through Hux’s defenses, and he felt the rush of heat to his face again, relief replacing everything he had been thinking and feeling, spreading another kind of warmth through him. “I did.”

“And that’s what you saw?” Ben seemed to be thinking hard, his range of emotions playing out on his face - frustration, confusion, consideration, then a slowly dawning realization that brought that small, easy smile again that transformed his face. “Your… base desires, that you showed me?”

His face grew more smug, and Hux was not prepared to tolerate that, nor the conversation that Ben seemed on the cusp of having with him. So Hux did the next best thing, which was to run his fingers through Ben’s hair, ordering it and tucking it behind one of his ears. It was as thick as he had imagined, his fingers snagging in tangles and styling product. He curled them against the back of Ben’s head, feeling the heat of his scalp.

Ben’s smile only grew, so Hux moved closer, pulling him in for the kiss that they had both just fantasized about.

The tingling warmth that had been between their palms was now a delicate touch at Hux’s lips. Ben’s were soft, and just as large and perfect as Hux had imagined. Ben seemed unsure what to do, so Hux moved his mouth and licked softly at Ben’s lips until he opened, so Hux could probe deeper with his tongue.

Ben took to this with enthusiasm, going from frozen stiff to relaxing against Hux, moving a hand to his waist and pulling him closer. His mouth began to move against Hux’s own, and he probed gently with his own tongue, mostly teasing, though Hux couldn’t tell if this was lack of confidence or experience. Hux lacked both those qualities when it came to kissing, but some part of him seemed to respond to Ben, realizing that he needed to turn his head and tilt it just so, to open his mouth wider, to exhale and swallow the small sound that Ben made as Hux tightened his grip in his hair.

Mostly, he wasn’t sure what to make of this, because this was far easier than he had imagined. He’d entertained the idea of physically seducing Ben Solo to the First Order if necessary, but it hadn’t been a serious consideration. He’d always believed that Ben would respond to the honest plight of the planets forgotten by the New Republic. He would respect the goals of the First Order, and assist them accordingly.

Hux had first seen Ben Solo in New Republic propaganda at age ten, and rather than being offended by Ben’s privilege, he’d grown obsessed with the idea of _being_  Ben Solo. After a year or two of furtively looking for Ben in more prop vids, he wondered what it would be like to have a friend like Ben Solo, and how he would be able to do everything perfectly in all their classes together. After all, a Jedi could do anything. That’s why the Emperor had killed them all. Now that there was a new Jedi, they just needed to recruit him, and Hux would figure out how.

Hux told himself this as he watched the pirated vids of Ben Solo over and over again, at age fourteen. He worked out the plan carefully, imagining how they’d meet as he watched Ben’s saber demonstrations repeatedly at age sixteen. He obsessively planned what to say, running every possible conversation through his head. The thought of Ben needing physical seduction had come after that, when his thoughts shifted to the physical advantages of recruiting Ben Solo, his fighting prowess and his body, and the glimpses of muscle and skin that Hux obsessively scanned his vid collection for.

Oh yes. Hux told himself it would be a sacrifice, but it was all for the good of the First Order. But imagining Ben’s physicality and intimacy between the two of them stopped at the idea of it, and somehow, Hux realized he’d never moved past the sight of Ben’s body to what they’d actually do together, as if the idea was somehow forbidden. That it was happening now was overwhelming, and something he had failed to prepare himself for.

After all, what was Hux to Ben Solo? Some part of him had always believed he could say the right thing, because he always could. But that Ben would never actually _want_  him.

He pulled back, slightly short of breath, his head spinning. Ben looked at him with half-lidded eyes, leaning forward, pressing his forehead against Hux’s, his hand squeezing his waist.

Hux closed his eyes. He didn’t want to say anything, did not know how to deal with his fear that saying the wrong thing would somehow bring all this to an end.

“Can I show you?” Ben murmured low, that deep voice of his going once again down Hux’s spine.

“Show me what, precisely?” Hux opened his eyes and pulled back slightly, feeling the corners of his mouth quirking against his will. He found he was happy, giddy, and that was also unfamiliar to him. But. It was just. _All of this_.

Ben frowned slightly, his brown eyes narrowing. “The Force.” Then his air of wounded dignity cleared, and he grinned to match Hux’s. “Or whatever else you want to see.”

Hux sat up, straightening his posture into something more presentable, smoothing out the legs of his uniform pants, the actions soothing his nerves, making him feel more himself. “The Force first.” His eyes darted over to Ben, then back to his lap. “We'll decide after that.”

He had always imagined it would be difficult to catch Ben Solo’s attention. But now he had it, and didn’t know what to do with it. It was ridiculous.

“We’ll see.” Ben flushed a darker shade of red, obviously as flustered and unfamiliar with this as Hux was, which was comforting. Ben took one of Hux’s hands, stilling it from Hux’s incessant smoothing in his lap. “I want to see if I can focus enough to take another person with me, if-” He paused, but his eyes held Hux’s more boldly now. “If I’m not wondering about kissing you. If I’m actually kissing you.”

The boldness of the request through Hux off-balance, though it shouldn’t have. It was just a kiss. It was what adolescent cadets did together. But they were both in their twenties, and it sat between them. Nothing Hux told himself could dismiss it.

He edged away slightly, a thought striking him and souring his mood. “And just how many people do you show the Force to?”

Ben shook his head, moving his other hand up to Hux’s hat. “I’ve never tried this with anyone else.” He took Hux’s hat off, and hooking his index finger under the brim, rested his hand on the back of Hux’s neck. “But I want to. I think it will work.”

Hux looked away, not liking the sincerity of Ben’s answer, though something about Hux being a test for some sort of Force kissing experiment sent that shiver down his spine again, along with a strict internal chastisement. He had just graduated from the Officer’s Academy, and should conduct himself accordingly. He had given himself a diplomatic directive.

He silenced that voice, knowing that he’d gambled much to get this very thing to happen. So when Ben leaned in closer, Hux moved his hand to the back of Ben’s neck, and with their knees pressed together and their other hands clasped, they kissed.

Hux felt the warmth between their clasped palms again, his own hand damp and lost in Ben’s. Then the warmth spread, to where their knees touched, to where Ben’s hand lay against his neck, to his hand against Ben’s neck, and finally to his lips.

It was easy to think of only Ben this time, and he drew a breath against Ben’s mouth and felt the warmth penetrating his thoughts. He did his best to mentally embrace it, telling himself it was Ben trying to draw the two of them closer together.

At that thought, part of his mind balked, and he felt a wounded, wordless query, likely from Ben. Hux pushed his hesitations down again, and tried the mental equivalent of the welcome again, his tongue finding its way into Ben’s mouth at the same time.

And the world suddenly grew around him, a background humming that he associated with _Ben_  suddenly opening up, and he heard - _felt_  - the sensation of so much more. He felt Ben, warm in his arms, the pulse of his life moving through him. He felt something move through the bench, stronger again when it reached the living turf of the ground, rooted into the rich, moist dirt, watered and lovingly maintained by another being. The sun fed it, and it drank deeply of that sunlight, it and the essences of all the trees in the park, all the avians, even the children playing in the sand pit, their parents, the other beings-

 _Amazing,_  Hux thought to himself, unsure how to parse this. _Remarkable. Does Ben feel this all the time?_

 _No_ , he heard Ben answer in his thoughts. _Just when I’m meditating. Connecting. When I’ve found peace._

 _Peace_? Hux answered wryly, feeling the low pulse of lust between them, feeling aroused, agitated, excited, worried, terrified. He easily showed this all to Ben, somehow not bothered by the way he couldn’t hide any of it, when he’d spent his whole life doing just that.

_How can you feel any peace right now?_

_It’s not quite that_ , Ben said, and Hux felt his annoyance, trying to clarify. _More like, you need to feel… self-satisfaction. You need to feel good about yourself._

_And you said you feel good when you do work with your body?_

_Yeah, usually that’s easier._  Ben’s thoughts grew amused. _I guess that’s what this is_. Hux felt his lips move against his own, and he closed his mouth, sucking against that full lower lip that he’d spent so much time staring at.

Hux pulled back, breaking their kiss, eyes narrowing, but not quite breaking their embrace. He could still feel the low hum of sensation from the surrounding lifeforms, a kind of background noise. “Oh? And I give you the sense of self-satisfaction?”

Ben pulled him back in, kissing him harder, and he was getting far too good at this too quickly, Hux’s mouth worked against Ben’s. There was a low moan, Hux wasn’t sure who made it, and their mouths grew wet together, the kiss sloppier, and part of Hux objected, while the rest of him drew himself closer, tried to get as much of himself touching Ben as possible.

This was definitely escalating quicker than he’d like. More alarms went off in his head, and he felt a soothing presence - Ben trying to calm him down.

 _Ben_ , he tried, wondering if the annoyance came across. _You said you couldn’t read my thoughts._

 _Well, I’ve never tried this before. Turns out I can. You’re thinking them at me_.

This was a more pointed than he would have liked, and Ben was getting a little more forceful, their mouths working together, a hint of teeth that he might have started himself.

Suddenly, there was a whirring sound, and a being making a clicking noise. Hux had sensed its approach vaguely, just one of thousands of forms of life and Force in the park, but hadn’t registered that they were so close. He pulled back from Ben’s mouth and looked at the being.

He didn’t recognize the species, but it was some sort of sentient plant, using an extensive root system to propel itself above ground - that would explain why it was hard to single out from the rest of the park. It had a series of twisting vines knotting up to a round, wooden nodule in its center. Hux saw no humanoid features in it. One of its vines held a holorecorder. Another a translator module. There were several bags and carriers secreted among its leaves and roots.

“Ben Solo,” a flat robot voice addressed them from the synthesizer. “You have a lover in the park.”

Hux jumped back as if burned, trying to pull out of Ben’s embrace, but infuriatingly, Ben held him tighter. Hux tried harder to squirm from his grip, but Ben had powerful arms. Of course he did.

“Nuteri,” Ben greeted it warmly, seeming to enjoy Hux's distress. “I didn’t realize you were coming today.”

“I told you I wanted a photo for your fans. I did not see you after the Senate meeting today.”

“No, I was meeting with-”

Hux clamped a hand over his mouth before he could say his name. He turned back to the being, scowling, recognizing its name. Its name ran at the bottom of most of the Holonet coverage of Ben Solo. Hux stalked Nuteri’s feeds relentlessly. He never realized Nuteri was a plant.

“We’re _quite done_ ,” Hux hissed, still trying to work away from the arm Ben had around his shoulder, holding his hat. “Ben was showing me the… customs of the Core Worlds. I’m not from around here.”

“Where are you from?”

Ben tried to twist away from Hux’s hand against his mouth, and Hux turned and buried his fingers in Ben’s hair, shaking his head. Ben’s body stilled, though his grip on Hux waist remained tight.

He turned back to Nuteri, shaking his head, feeling his face darken with embarrassment he couldn’t control.

“No, I don’t think so.” Hux nearly died at the thought of a holo of himself and Ben Solo kissing in public finding its way back to First Order space. Ben Solo wasn’t a popular subject - he’d tried floating a conversation a few times with classmates, and while there were those who were aware of him, Hux seemed to be the only one combing the pirated holonet footage for him.

Still. He did _not_  need this.

“I want you to delete that holo.”

The being made a series of audible creaking sounds, and Hux realized it was these that its translator was picking up on as language.

“Master Ben has never had a romantic partner before. It will be of interest to his fans on the holonet.” The synthesizer paused. “He is popular in the Outer Rim. Your accent identifies you from that region. They will be happy to hear from you.”

Ben’s hand moved from Hux’s waist to his thigh, squeezing it, and Hux felt his awkward mood changing from annoyance to anger to fury. He was sick of hearing about his accent. He wanted out of Ben’s grip, which was too controlling. As if in response, Ben's grip relaxed.  He left one arm draped over Hux's shoulder, and brought his other hand casually to his face, examining it.

“Nuteri, can I have a copy of that?”

“Of course, Master Ben. I am always happy to oblige.”

Ben pulled a small datapad from the sleeve of his robes, and Nuteri manipulated the holorecorder. In a moment, a holo of Ben and Hux embracing, Ben’s arm draped behind his shoulder with his hat, an expression on Hux’s face that made him want to die on the spot. One of his suspenders had slid down his shoulder. He fixed it now.

Ben glanced up at him, expression infuriatingly innocent. “Do you want a copy?”

Hux’s anger turned apoplectic, and he felt his face fold into rage. Ben smirked, obviously savoring Hux’s discomfort.

“He does, and he doesn’t,” Ben said lightly, turning to Nuteri.

“He may have a copy also, Master Ben.”

Hux heard his hat hit the bench behind him, and Ben’s fingers combed through Hux's hair in a condescending soothing gesture. Hux was annoyed to realize he enjoyed this, regardless of circumstances, especially the thought that perhaps Ben had been wanting to do this just as much as Hux had.

“I’ll give it to him later.” His loose hand came out in the air between them, and his expression focused. “But Nuteri, you’ll have to delete the copy you have. Every trace of it. And you’ll have to forget you saw him here.”

“Of course, Master Ben.” And to Hux’s astonishment, the plant took the holorecorder and appeared to manipulate it again. A series of lights flashed, green, and then red, before it disappeared back into the vine network of its body.

“Is it gone, Nuteri?”

“The holo is gone, Master Ben.”

“That’s fine. You didn’t see me today. You’ll have to come to my demonstration tomorrow. You can take holos of me there.”

“It’s fine. I didn’t see you today. I’ll have to come to your demonstration tomorrow. I can take holos of you there,” the synthesizer ground back in its flat robotic voice. Hux looked with interest between the sentient plant and Ben. Ben waved his hand one more time, twisting his fingers toward his palm.

“Go back home.”

“I’ll go back home now, Master Ben. Thank you for your time.”

And with that, the reporter ambled off with its rolling root gait across the park. Hux noticed that the sentient plant didn’t earn a single stare as it worked its way through the light crowd.

Hux watched it go for a few silent moments, turning back to Ben when he was sure it wasn’t a trick.

“What was that?”

Ben shrugged, looking somehow both smug and embarrassed. “The Force.”

“You can use it to tell people what to do?”

Ben began to look more uncomfortable, the confidence he’d built from showing off short-lived. “I’m not supposed to. You can’t just go around making people do whatever you want.” He looked guiltily after the being, then turned back to Hux, eyes downcast. “But you said you didn’t want the holo of you out there, so I did it.”

Hux fought to keep his face straight, fidgeting slightly on the bench despite himself. Ben’s hand came up from his thigh and back around his waist. Hux let it, looking from it to Ben’s face.

“What else can you do?”

Ben frowned. “What do you mean?”

“What other Force powers do you have?”

Ben looked at Hux, his expression clouding and turning suspicious, but he answered. “Not much. That’s the first time I’ve tried that on a sentient.” He seemed more agitated, angrier.

Hux sensed the danger, and backed off. He cupped Ben’s chin in his hand.

“You are singular. The most talented person I’ve ever met.”

“Talented.” Ben rolled his eyes, his mood shot. He shifted in the bench, facing forward and away from Hux.

Hux let him, sitting for a moment, hurt by the rejection. The question was a reasonable one, and Hux had tried to reassure him. He thought about several delicate ways to change the subject, but this would remain awkward unless confronted. Ben was obviously going to sulk, or leave, either of which was unacceptable.

“Do you not like me complimenting your use of the Force?”

Ben looked sideways at him, but continue to hang his head, his black hair mostly hiding his face. “It’s all anyone wants from me. I can use the Force, and that’s it.”

It was a fair assessment. But Hux was angry about the interruption, and the more he thought about it, the angrier he got. “Was I thinking about the Force while I was kissing you? Was that what I was fantasizing about?”

Ben’s face reddened, though continued to sulk. “No.”

“Then it wasn’t what we were doing here, was it?”

“It was why we were kissing. I told you I would show you the Force.”

“Ben.” Hux was growing frustrated, letting his words go unchecked. “ _You’re the one that offered_. And did I not also compliment your sword demonstration techniques? I think that would imply I’m also attracted to your body.”

Ben’s mouth twitched, but he said nothing to this.

“I don’t give compliments freely,” Hux snapped, his patience wearing thin. “But I’m wasting my breath on you, because you are exceptional. What else do you want to hear? I’ll say it.”

“That you like me for my personality.” At this, he looked up, and his eyes flashed, darker, more brown. Hux tried not to be attracted to it.

“So far, all you’ve done is kiss me, talk about your powers, and sulk on a bench. You’ll have to try harder.”

Ben looked offended for a moment, but recovered quickly, his expression still dark. “And what am I supposed to think of you? You got angry when someone took a holo of me, you flew across the galaxy to stalk me, and… did you just say you were trying to compliment me? Is that what you think that was?”

“What do you think I’m doing? Do you think I like the sound of my own voice?”

Ben’s mouth twitched. “Yeah. A little bit.”

Hux ignored this. “I thought we were having a conversation! One wrong step, something that you’re _too sensitive_  to deal with- honestly, your Force powers? We’re not allowed to talk about that?”

They were both breathing harder, and had leaned in closer. Hux was furious, all but shouting into Ben’s face. He wasn’t surprised when Ben brought their lips together, and they were once again embracing on the bench, Hux all but crawling into Ben’s lap, Ben pulling Hux’s thighs across his own, Hux yanking on Ben’s ridiculous hair.

He gave himself to it easily, and should have been disturbed by the way all other thoughts eluded him when Ben was this close. It was weakness, it was why he had told himself countless times over the years not to indulge with other cadets. But he had never wanted them as much as he wanted Ben, and there was an absurd certainty that this was exactly what he had come here to do.

It wasn’t, not really. But as his hand strayed inside Ben’s robes, his fingers running over the damp skin of Ben’s collarbone, it didn’t really matter. His breathing grew heavy and labored, and he felt like Ben was smothering him, that there was a sensation like suffocation clawing inside his chest, over his skin where every place that touched Ben, even through fabric. Every part of him was too hot, and tingled with the sensation of his Force.

They stayed that way for several minutes, and Hux was slow to notice that Ben drew him slowly into his awareness of the Force again. He felt the stillness around them, then the spreading awareness and the low hum of all the life in the park. He tried to be more vigilant of the sensations around him, lest more unsolicited holos of them be taken, but he was concentrating too hard on shifting himself to press their chests together, how he was hard, how Ben was too, how straddling Ben’s lap brought them together. It was easy to rock in his lap, and it made both of them breathe harder and pull closer, each making noises as a concession to pleasure.

Hux wondered what Ben saw in his head through all this, and thought that if Ben was feeling what he was, there was nothing. There was just an awareness that it was happening, and for Hux, it was the most intense experience of his life. Even if he had anticipated this, no amount of planning could have prepared him for how all-consuming it was.

Ben was the one that pulled back first, out of breath, his hands wrapped around Hux’s suspenders with a handful of Hux’s shirt clenched in them.

“Do you want a copy of that holo?”

“Yes.” Hux did. If he didn’t have it, he thought he might not believe this had happened.

“Okay. Can we-” He paused, and for some reason, looked unsure. Hux was sitting in Ben’s lap and had obviously done away with all caution, so he couldn't guess what Ben was struggling to ask. He became annoyed when Ben took longer than a moment to form his question.

“Can we go back to your room?”

Hux clenched his jaw, his annoyance growing. “I don’t have one.”

“Where are you sleeping?”

Hux had been planning on not doing so, but there was a better answer now. “With you. Where are you staying?”

Ben made a face, dropping his hands to Hux’s hips. “At the Mainline Hotel. But I’m sharing a common room with Luke and Nella.”

Hux inhaled sharply, looking out across the city, then back at Ben. “Fine. I don’t care. We’ll have to pass them.” This was easier said than done, and Hux wasn’t sure his current enthusiasm would carry him confidently past Luke Skywalker to his nephew’s bedroom. But he was willing to commit to it now, for lack of any other option.

Ben nodded his agreement, perhaps holding Hux’s gaze a few seconds too long. His face was still flushed, but he looked confused, maybe a little lost. Hux felt the same way, and his hands moved to Ben’s biceps, squeezing them.

Ben closed his eyes and shook his head, leaning over to grab Hux’s hat and settle it over the now-disheveled mess of his hair. While Hux was deciding how to feel about this, Ben lifted Hux easily off his lap, Hux sliding down to stand on the ground, annoyed by the show of strength.

He tried to straighten his shirt and pants, but Ben kept one of Hux’s hands, and Hux didn’t have the will to pull it back. Flustered, he began tucking his shirt back with one hand, suddenly unsure of what to say.

It was Ben who took the first steps, pulling Hux across the park and toward the busy main avenues around the Senate complex.

 

* * *

 

Luke and Nella weren’t in residence in the common room. Which was a relief, not because he didn't have to brazen his way into Ben's bedroom, but rather because he and Ben couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Once in a speeder, Ben had pulled him close and began kissing him again. Hux thanked Ben for his loose Republican morals, and returned the gesture, the two of them clutching at each other, completely oblivious to the world around them. The driver had needed to clear his throat several times before Ben leaned forward and ordered in an annoyed voice to charge the ride to his mother’s account.

In the opulent common room of the Jedi suites, Hux wrapped his legs around Ben’s waist, and Ben carried him, their kisses more urgent, containing more heat, a hint of teeth. Ben buried his face in Hux’s neck and began kissing down, licking and sucking. Hux tipped his head back and put a hand to his hat so that it wouldn’t fall off, nearly out of his mind with the desire to shed his clothes and get his hands all over Ben.

The room was nice, done in light striped colors and accented with muted gold-pink metals that winked in the bright light of late afternoon that streamed through the large floor-to-ceiling windows, but Hux hardly noticed anything save that Ben Solo could hold him up with one arm as he went for the lock on the door.

Hux slid out of Ben’s arms and slammed his palm into the panel after they entered, selecting the “Do Not Disturb” mode. The room was decorated similar to the common room, save the stripe patterns were gray and black, the accents silver. It contained the largest bed Hux had ever seen and a door leading off into what he assumed was a private ‘fresher suite.

He turned to Ben, an evaluating look on his face as Ben took him in, breathless and nearly feral, a predatory glint in his eyes that made Hux weak.

“Well. How do you want to do this?”

Ben shook his head. “Anything. Anything you want.”

Something inside of him withered at Ben’s submission, which was at odds with the ardent look on his face. But the disparity intrigued Hux. He wanted to explore this. Extensively. Still, looking at Ben, he was uneasy. He had no map for this kind of situation, and wanted Ben to offer him more of a clue. “That’s not a starting point. Give me something more specific.”

Ben backed up until his knees hit the edge of the bed, and he folded into it, slumping suddenly over his lap as if defeated. His legs were spread, and his hands twisted together in the lap of his robe. His expression changed to something more embarrassed and unsure, and then overwhelmed. “I don’t… know.” He glanced up at Hux, looking like he was on the edge of tears, before hanging his head.

Ben Solo breaking down into tears was even less of a starting place, and Hux decided to stop this immediately. He crossed the room, laying his hat on a small bedside table of carved dark wood. He ran his fingers his hair to neaten it and considered all the bawdy stories he’d overheard about shore leave. He pulled open the drawer to check for lubricant. It was there, along with what Hux assumed were aids for other species, because this was the New Republic.

He slammed the drawer and straddled Ben’s lap, forcing him to shift further back onto the huge mattress, covered in ridiculous shimmering black fabric. Ben leaned back on his arms and stared up at Hux, still flushed and overwhelmed. It suited him well, so much better than Hux could have imagined.

Suddenly, he realized that there might be something irrevocable about having sex with Ben Solo, something he would never get back once given, something more than a mere physical experience.

It gave him only a moment’s pause as he stopped to tuck a lock of hair behind Ben’s ear, considering. Then he leaned in and kissed him, more softly this time, more like what they had been doing at the beginning. He licked gently into Ben’s mouth, hands on his shoulders, leaning his weight down so he could feel the muscles of his shoulders flex and bunch under the layers of his tunic.

He pulled back, and spoke with more confidence than he felt. “We’ll start where we left off.”

“No. More than that.”

“Be specific, or I’ll do what I like.”

Ben shook his head. “Armitage, can you…” He looked down between them, and back up, and Hux saw fear in his eyes, which made his arousal recoil. It was the same fear other cadets showed when they were facing him in battle simulations, the ones that knew that Hux’s opponents tended to suffer a lot of fatal accidents and equipment failures.

He braced himself, waiting to see what he had done wrong. But Ben’s response nearly made him laugh.

“Can you touch me?” He asked quietly, gesturing to their laps between them. “It… hurts. I can’t… go much longer.”

Hux pressed his lips into a line to hide his amusement. “Yes,” he said simply, biting back the first several things that came to mind.

He pulled at Ben’s robes, letting them slip down over his shoulders, pooling on the bed at his wrists and waist. He was wearing a tunic underneath, which Hux tried to gain access to by uncinching the belt and reaching below. Annoyingly, he was wearing a second belt under all that fabric, with a proper buckle, as well as high-waisted pants with a line of buttons.

“How do you piss?” Hux asked angrily, after several minutes of fumbling with Ben’s clothes.

“I have to hold it all day. It’s a Jedi exercise.”

Hux paused, his fingers stilling over the frustratingly tiny buttons on Ben’s pants. “Are you serious?”

This had never occurred to him before, and he immediately slotted the possibility into the Trooper training program, which would eliminate the need for waste collection and processing installed on the suits for long missions.

“Are you stupid?”

Hux froze, then leaned back, astonished.

Ben surged forward, pulling the tunic off over his head and the robes over his arms. “No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. It’s just… do you really think I hold it all day?”

“It seems more likely than you undoing this entire outfit to piss,” Hux answered snappishly, undoing the rest of the buttons. He bit his tongue on his immediate reaction, which was disgust over the fact that Ben Solo apparently didn’t wear underwear.

That annoying detail helped mitigate the shock of seeing the size of Ben’s cock, which was… substantial. Again, a thing that Hux couldn’t have imagined. It was erect, leaking messily and nearly purple with strain. It seemed so out-of-place, laying against the firmness of Ben’s stomach inside all those Jedi robes.

He looked back into Ben’s face and saw bald desperation, Ben’s brows together, his mouth drawn down. Hux had vaguely imagined Ben fucking him on the ride to the hotel, but he wasn’t sure that was going to happen with a cock this size.

“Can you touch it? Is there something wrong?”

“ _No_ ,” Hux answered, still snappish. He got his own cock out reluctantly. It was also fully hard, though not nearly as impressive as Ben’s.

“I’m going to do this together, okay?”

“Together?”

Rather than answer the question, especially since it would have been with _Are you stupid?_ , Hux simply leaned forward and captured Ben’s ridiculously kissable lips in his own. He put one arm around Ben’s shoulders, and brought their cocks together with the other hand, relying on the precome to help with the friction, not entirely sure if lube was used for this or not.

This was not something Hux had ever done, or even imagined. It was nearly too much, to be sitting in Ben’s lap with both their cocks in his hand, leaning into his bare chest, still with his uniform shirt and pants on, kissing him, with the standing order to _do anything_  to him. It took a moment to register that Ben was begging him in a quiet voice.

“ _Stop_ , it’s enough, it _hurts_ -”

Hux paused and brought his hand away, to find that Ben had come copiously, all over his shirt and suspenders. Hux was still hard, nearly on the edge of orgasm, and not pleased.

“I was only at it for a minute!”

Ben was gasping, overwhelmed, mostly ignoring Hux. “Good, it was so good, just… give me a minute…”

“Ben!” He brought his hand to the back of Ben’s head, raising it to meet his eyes. Ben’s eyes were hazy and unfocused, which made Hux angrier. “Ben, I don’t have a change of clothes! What am I supposed to do about _this_?” He plucked at his come-covered dress shirt, the nicest shirt he owned, furious.

“We can wash it. The hotel can.” He waved vaguely with one hand and slumped backwards. Hux let go of his hair and watched him relax and stretch out against the shimmering black sheets on the bed, eyes closed, looking pleased with himself.

“Ben,” Hux tried again, shrugging out of his suspenders and unbuttoning his ruined shirt. “ _I’m_  not finished, because I can last longer than a _single touch_. What do you intend to do about it?”

Ben cracked an eye, looking up at Hux with more interest. “What do you want me to do about it?" He propped himself up on his elbows as Hux removed his shirt. “Do you want me to jerk you off?”

Hux frowned, studying Ben’s mouth as he spoke. There was something else he wanted to try, had been fantasizing about.

Hux’s practical experience with sex was almost nonexistent - he saw the power of it, saw that it could be given and used as a tool to get what one wanted. He’d seen his father use it effectively, inexplicably, for years. Hux had maneuvered himself into a position where withholding it was more beneficial, as it made those around him try even harder to win it. He’d decided long ago that he’d know when the time was right to move forward.

But aside from very occasional holoporn and filthy soldier talk, his knowledge of sex was very limited. But there was one sex act he had hardly believed possible the first time he’d heard it in the crude context of an insult. One cadet had asked another what _blow me_  meant, and the older boy had described, graphically, how one went about sucking a cock. The idea of someone putting their mouth around a dick seemed so incredible to Hux that he assumed the other cadet had been lying.

But he remembered. He remembered for a long time, and it was the first sex act he looked up independently. It was still one of the only things he would watch, on the rare occasions he felt restless enough to masturbate.

“No.” He slid off Ben’s lap, yanking off his boots and sliding his pants the rest of the way odown his hips - noticing, with a kind of detached disgust, that Ben had also managed to soil his pants. He slipped his thumbs underneath the ID chain around his neck, then decided to leave it on, cursing himself for the near-superstitious fear of death he had never been able to shake.

Ben sat up straighter. “What is that around your neck?”

Hux frowned, suddenly noticing that Ben wasn’t wearing one. “An ID tag. You don’t have them in the Republic?”

“It has your name on it?”

Hux rolled his eyes. “No, it has someone else’s name on it.”

“Is it for when you forget your name?”

“No, it’s for identifying my dead body when I’m executed as a spy.” His voice was light, and he took a perverse pleasure in slipping that much of the truth into the conversation.

Ben frowned. “Wait, are you serious? It’s for identifying you after you die?”

“Yes. How is it done in the Republic?”

“With… biometric ID scans, I guess.”

“And what if your remains are vaporized in space?”

“How is your ID tag going to help that?”

“We collect them. We can track them along with-” He stopped and shook his head. It didn’t matter. He settled them against his chest with a small _tnk_  sound and approached the bed again. “Nevermind about that. I want you to do something else.”

“What?” Ben looked more eager at this, and Hux noticed his giant cock twitching with interest.

Well. That was something. They might still be able to try something else, then.

Hux crawled back into his lap, then pushed him backwards onto the bed. He shimmied up Ben’s torso, solid and well-muscled and just beginning to perspire lightly, and pinned Ben’s biceps with his knees.

“I want your mouth on me.” Hux leaned down, noticing that his hair styling was almost completely gone and that his hair was tumbling around his face. He pushed one side casually behind his ear. “Can you do that, Ben?”

“My mouth?” Ben’s mouth was currently open in surprise, his lips parted just enough to see his slightly crooked teeth. His eyes were wide and taking in the sight of Hux’s cock, which was currently several centimeters from his chin.

“Yes. I want you to lay back and relax, and I want to put my cock in your mouth.”

Ben’s eyes went back to Hux’s, that soft, trusting look in them again that pulled on something in Hux and brought back the feeling of this being utterly irrevocable.

Just kneeling with Ben pinned below him like this was making Hux’s cock throb, his balls tight. He closed his eyes, realizing that he wasn’t going to last very long, either. He opened them, and leaned in to whisper into Ben’s ear.

“I want to fuck your face.”

This was standard barracks talk, though a thrill went through him at the idea that Jedi might not be as familiar with it. The quiet gasp from Ben made him suppress a smirk, and when he pulled back, Ben gave him a slightly scandalized look before the corner of his mouth pulled up in his own smirk, that hard look of wanting back in his eyes.

“Okay.”

So Hux moved himself further forward and guided the head of his dick between Ben’s lips, into that generous mouth of his. Ben tilted his head back and Hux froze, not wanting to force himself on Ben, but Ben took only a moment, his breath hot at the tip. His tongue came out for just a moment before he sucked experimentally at the head, moving his lips just around it, then pulling back. He licked gently with his tongue, then reached up with two fingers, gripping the base. He rubbed slowly up and down the underside with his thumb, then glanced up at Hux again, flushed through his cheeks and ears, looking just as discomfited as Hux felt. He focused back on Hux’s erection, then maneuvered it with his fingers, licking the underside in a broad swipe from base to head with his tongue, moving his lips back over the head when he got to the tip.

And that proved to be too much, because _really_ , this was Ben Solo and it was a _blowjob_ , and Hux came into his mouth with no more warning than a strangled cry.

Ben coughed explosively, spraying Hux with it, then rolled out from under Hux, who collapsed somewhere near the center of the bed. Ben moved to the edge and sat, gagging dramatically and spitting onto the floor.

Hux rolled away from him, too overcome to take him to task for his dramatics. _Of course_  he was going to come in his mouth.

“Why did you do that?” Ben asked accusingly, and it was Hux’s turn to roll over onto his back and crack an eyelid.

“Because I enjoyed it. I thought that was obvious.”

“I thought you would… I don’t know, finish in your hand or something, and I didn’t think it would be so quick.”

 _Neither did I_ , Hux kept to himself. Instead, he waved Ben’s concerns away.

“I’ll do it to you later, and…” He closed his eyes yawned, which gave him a moment to consider, then commit. “I’ll swallow every drop.”

This shut Ben up for several moments, long enough for Hux to crack and eye and look at him again. Ben had turned to regard him, studying his body with open admiration and curiosity.

“You can touch if you want,” he allowed, closing his eyes again and stretching, arching his back in what he knew was an obvious show. “I won’t break.”

“But you look like you would,” Ben returned, running his finger over Hux’s forearm, where he had pinked in the sun. Hux opened his eyes again to return the insult, but Ben seemed sincere. He leaned over, running one of his big palms up Hux’s arm, then his fingertips around his collarbone. His back was to a large window with a sheer curtain drawn across it that admitted a generous amount of light. Ben’s hair looked lighter where the sun hit the tangled mess of it. Hux reached up and ran his fingers through it again, tucking a lock behind his ear when he finished. Ben only stared, continuing to run his fingers along the skin of Hux’s chest, his neck. Hux felt sticky and overwarm after the sex, but liked the attention too much to suggest they clean up.

“Do you know why I came up to you earlier?”

“No,” Hux admitted. “I wasn’t expecting you to pick me out of the crowd.”

Ben grinned crookedly at him. “You looked so out of place in that uniform, leaning against the column like you were trying to be casual but didn’t know how.”

Hux bristled, but Ben’s fingers had found their way to his face, tracing an ear and tucking his hair behind it. Hux let go of his pique and his eyes as Ben’s thumb traced his cheek, then his eyelashes.

Ben shifted, and Hux opened his eyes as he felt both of Ben’s hands on him, along his sides, over his chest, his thumbs running over the ridges of ribs, then his nipples, which made Hux squirm. Hux allowed all of it, though no one had laid a hand on him since he’d grown out of mandatory combat training at seventeen. Even then, Hux couldn't recall the last time someone had touched him outside of a fight. Maybe never.

A part of him was alarmed at how easy all this was, how readily he let down every guard he had, how he wasn’t looking for weaknesses or using any of this to his advantage. But there had to be good in it somewhere, because the thrill that ran through him at Ben’s touch was one of the most exciting things he’d ever experienced.

He could feel himself flushing under Ben’s attention, his eyes moving in the wake of his hands, a look of intense concentration on his face. A thumb dipped into his navel, traced his hipbones, then moved back to the softness of Hux’s waist, squeezing.

“And?” Hux prompted, still curious as to why Ben spoke to him in the first place.

“And you’re beautiful,” he finished simply, his eyes going to Hux’s once again. Hux looked away, embarrassed by the artless comment and unwilling to show it. He shifted, then turned the motion into a foot against Ben’s shoulder.

“I want you to do something decidedly _not beautiful_  to me. Can you manage?”

“Anything. I told you.”

“Fine.” Hux gestured toward the bedside drawer. “Get the human lubrication out of there, and put a small amount on your index finger.”

He watched as Ben obeyed his order, studying the slick and looking curiously at Hux.

Hux hesitated a moment. He’d seen this done in holoporn, and had only tried it himself once, not finding the experience pleasurable, but filing it away for later consideration with a partner. He hoped Ben would understand what he wanted, but Ben continued to stare at him with a flushed, eager expression, and Hux sighed.

He knew that it was done with his ass in the air and his face down in the mattress. But he wanted to look at Ben as it happened, because otherwise, what was the point?

He decided to raise his knees and spread his thighs, tucking his hands under his lower back to raise his hips slightly, his entreaty unmistakable. Ben’s face lit up with curiosity, and he gripped Hux’s thigh with his other hand, positioning himself to kneel in front of Hux’s spread legs.

“I want you to fuck me with that finger. Go slow.” He wasn’t sure how this was normally done, but Ben’s fingers were large and calloused, and he thought that caution was best. “Just the tip of your finger. I’ll guide you through it.”

“Are you sure you want that?” Ben was eying Hux’s limp cock dubiously.

“Yes. I want you to try it.” He spread his thighs wider, nodding his head. “Go. Slowly.”

Ben obeyed, much to Hux’s delight - he hadn’t anticipated how pleasant it was to watch Ben follow his orders. Having his orders obeyed was commonplace, but… Ben Solo was different.

Ben’s finger came to Hux’s entrance, and he looked into Hux’s face, unsure. Hux nodded, keeping his own indifferent expression firmly in place, worried otherwise that Ben would sense how nervous he was and stop. “Good. Just the tip. Push in.”

Ben did so, and Hux felt the stretch of it. It had been some time since he’d tried this, and having someone else’s fingers there was… different. He forced himself to relax.

“In and out a few times. Let me get used to it. It will take a moment.”

And Ben's obedience sent another thrill through him. He ordered himself sternly to let Ben’s finger in, to enjoy this and grow used to the sensation. He squirmed as he felt his body responding.

“In farther now. Up to the second knuckle.”

Ben’s other hand was stroking Hux’s thigh, the callouses of his palm catching against the sparse hair there. He had a look of concern on his face, as if he didn’t understand what Hux was getting out of this, and his eyes kept darting between Hux and his hand. Hux wondered, briefly, if Ben had ever done this to himself, and the thought of Ben face down in the mattress, a finger in his ass, made him let out a slow breath as his stomach tightened and his cock twitched.

He moved his hands behind his head and arched his hips up, warming to the activity. His cock was still mostly soft, but he was hoping Ben could get him to the edge of a second orgasm, and they could slide their cocks together and finish at the same time, making a mess of these expensive Republican sheets that were beginning to stick to his sweaty back.

“Your whole finger. Move a little faster now. I told you, I’m not going to break.”

“You still seem like you might.”

“Ben. Trust me enough to stop you if I don’t like it.”

Ben's tentative expression was replaced with a smirk. “Yes, sir.”

That hit Hux harder than it should have, given that he both heard and said it many times a day. But that was in a life far away from this fantasy, so his hips bucked, his cock twitched, and Ben’s finger snagged uncomfortably inside him.

He hissed, and Ben pulled the finger out.

“No, it’s fine. Keep going. That was my fault.”

Ben put his finger in more tentatively than he had before, and Hux was momentarily frustrated, trying to think of a way to frame encouragement that didn't sound like a complaint. But Ben's fumbling touch finally located his prostate, and his complaints evaporated.

“There,” he got out tightly. “Touch me just there. Did you feel it?”

Ben frowned, curious this time, as he ran his finger back over the spot.

“Yes,” Hux tried to say levelly, but it was difficult. “Just like that. Continue.”

He did, and Hux relaxed into it, working his hips slowly against Ben’s finger, Ben finding both his rhythm. Hux closed his eyes and lost himself to it. Soon, he was vaguely aware of a familiar tingling sensation, first against his thigh, then in Ben’s other hand. He pulled back, surprised, and Ben’s hand slipped out and away.

Ben looked shocked. “I just… It just seemed like you would like it.” He looked away, his palms clenching on his thighs. “You liked it in the park, and I thought I could… do it again. And it worked, but. I shouldn’t have. I didn’t know.”

Ben seemed to be slipping into some sort of self-depreciating pout that could not have been more poorly timed. Hux blinked at him, groping for composure. “No, that’s… fine. If you want to do that.” It was more than fine. It was astonishing. It was unlike anything Hux had ever felt, a unique gift directly from Ben to Hux. He wanted it, more and more of it.

The idea of Ben doing that inside his ass was... exquisite.  He clenched his eyes shut as he felt himself flush, arousal coiling in the pit of his stomach again. He blinked and composed himself, then slid back into position, spreading his thighs open again and continuing as if nothing was wrong. “Use more lubricant, and keep going. I was really enjoying it. A lot.” He paused, not used to giving praise in this context. “You’re doing fine, Ben.”

Ben looked at him doubtfully, but slicked his finger and and continued. It was cold at first, but he quickly found the rhythm again, his finger sliding in and out, that warm, tingling sensation spreading.

“Coat a second finger now, your middle finger. Try the tips of both at once.”

Ben withdrew his hand, which was shaking slightly. “You want more than one?”

“You may not realize it, with me asking for things and giving you very specific instructions, but I am actually enjoying this quite a bit.”

Ben studied his hand as he slicked his middle finger, hesitating once again at Hux’s entrance.

“How many will you want?”

“The idea, Ben, would be to eventually take your ridiculously huge penis, but the thought of you putting that in me is making me faint. It will-” Hux cut himself off. _It will take a while to work up to that_  was what he wanted to say, but they didn’t have a while. Hux doubted he’d have more than just this one night. A chill spread through him, and he banished the unwelcome thought. He would enjoy this as much as he liked right now.

“It will hurt,” he finished simply, with more of an edge than he intended.

Ben looked offended as he reached down with two fingertips and began stretching Hux. It was uncomfortable this time, and Hux relaxed into it.

“What’s wrong with my cock? You looked upset when you saw it earlier.”

“Do you really need me to explain that your cock is monstrous?” Hux had never even seen a cock that large in holoporn. Seeing it for the first time while it was fully erect seemed rather unfair. Because of course Ben Solo had an enormous dick.

“I’m sorry it’s so big,” he muttered, obviously hurt, his fingers more rough at Hux’s entrance. Hux wanted his slowness and the tingling back. He sighed.

“Can you do the Force connection again?” When Ben gave him a dark look, Hux remembered his explanation earlier, and that he had been defensive about his powers. He saw plainly that Ben didn’t like being asked to perform, and Hux didn’t want to make it that. He rolled his head to the side. “It’s easier for me to explain what I mean if you just… can see it. As you did earlier.” His eyes met Ben’s, and he tried for more sincerity, not wanting to alienate Ben, but hating himself for admitting this aloud.

“My silver tongue is failing me, Ben. I don't want you to misunderstand me.” He wanted Ben’s power because it was exceptional, because it was unique and one of the many things that would make him remember this afternoon for the rest of his life. He wanted Ben for Ben, and he also wanted Ben to know how singular this experience was, and wanted to know that it was the same for him. He met Ben’s eyes, hoping that he had made himself understood.

Ben’s look softened, and his other hand came back to Hux’s thigh. Hux felt the tingling again as Ben’s ministrations slowed, and he relaxed into it, both the feeling of Ben and the way his fingers were working him open. He closed his eyes, concentrating.

Ben somehow managed to slip the tips of both fingers in to the first knuckle the same time he breached Hux’s mind.

 _Is this fine_?

Hux jumped slightly at the sensation of Ben addressing him so privately, and snapped back defensively.

“I still don’t know if I like you reading my thoughts.” He opened his eyes long enough to see Ben roll his, then closed them again, thrusting his hips up.

_You asked for it._

Hux was angry for a moment, but then Ben had both fingers in, stretching him tighter, and suddenly he was focused on that. He fell more deeply into whatever Ben was doing with his powers. There were less life forms around this time to sense - no plants, a vague sense of avians outdoors, near the window. The rooms in the vicinity were empty.

There was just Ben and Hux, and he was suddenly overwhelmed, feeling a wave of affection wash over him. He was appalled at himself for a moment, and when he felt embarrassed again, he realized he was somehow sensing Ben’s thoughts.

 _You don’t have to be so angry about it_ , he heard Ben say, and he felt the good feelings flee. _Am I not supposed to like you when we do this_?

Hux was aggrieved, because no, he did not necessarily want Ben’s affection. That would make this more complicated than it already was, and it was already slipping from his control. He felt a querying sensation, followed by something like optimism, and Hux pulled himself back.

“Can you hear all my thoughts”

 _No, not all_. Curiosity, then the feeling of Ben touching his prostate again, and he was lost to his own arousal and sensation. A feeling of pride and triumph from Ben, then a feeling of _more, more, more_ , a loneliness and a hunger that made Hux’s head spin.

“Can I show you something, in my head? What I want you to do?”

 _Please_ , and it had a pleading edge. He felt Ben’s fingers go in deeper, and it was uncomfortable, edged with pain. They would have to stop that soon, because even Ben’s fingers were too much. Ben pulled back, startled by the pain.

Not wanting to stop so soon, Hux flexed back down, chasing the feeling of his fingers, and Ben tried again.

Savoring the pain, Hux pictured Ben using more fingers, and then Ben between his thighs, fucking him hard, Hux’s legs wrapped around his waist, Ben’s big hands pushing his chest down into the bed, Hux’s hands wrapped around his wrists, Ben leaning down to kiss him.

Ben made a high noise, and his fingers disappeared abruptly, along with the sensation of him in his mind. Hux opened his eyes, startled, and peered between his thighs to see Ben sitting back, a hand clasped to his own erection.

“You want that?”

Hux closed his eyes and laid back down. “Yes, but it’s not something we can do. You’re too big. But you can keep using your fingers until I tell you to stop, and then I’ll suck your cock.”

“I want you to do that, but… what you showed me. Will that feel good for both of us?” Hux cracked an eye and watched Ben’s tongue dart out to moisten his lips. Then he closed it again, because that was obscene.

To tell Ben that they could do it later would concede to a future between them, and Hux still didn't allow himself that thought.

“It could be easy eventually, yes, but I can’t just… do that.” With his eyes still closed, he put a hand to his face and wiped the sweat there, pushing his hair away again. The room was sweltering, and both he and Ben were dripping with sweat. The black sheets were absolutely ruined, which felt like a victory.

“You won’t do it because you won’t like it?”

Hux opened his eyes, arching an eyebrow. “Because it will _hurt_ , Ben. You felt how hard it was with just your fingers, didn’t you? You can’t just push in and expect it to be easy.”

Ben’s fingers ran along his length, and Hux suddenly wanted his lips around it, the girth, the warmth that would almost certainly spill over his tongue immediately. He remembered Ben’s disgust with his own orgasm earlier, and suddenly wanted nothing more than to taste him.

He propped himself up on his elbows, and suddenly Ben was over him, a hot palm pressing him back down into the bed.

“I can…” he licked his lips again, and he had an almost predatory look on his face. Hux shivered, liking this side of Ben even more. “I can take away your pain. I think. If we’re connected by the Force.”

“You’re a doctor now?”

“No, I just…” He looked off to the side, then back at Hux. He looked unsure for a moment, and then his expression hardened. Hux could tell he wanted to try this, and not just for the sex. “Like the deception earlier. I think I can make it like a mind trick. Just tell you not to feel the pain.”

Hux’s lips thinned. The thought of taking Ben’s cock was suddenly very appealing, though he found this mystical method to be dubious. “And you can magically take away the pain. My ass will be perfectly fine.”

“Not… no. It will be fine as long as I’m telling you it doesn’t hurt.” His eyes shifted away again, and then back. “Maybe not afterward.”

Hux clenched his jaw and made the choice. He was used to dealing with pain. At least this time he would have the experience of getting fucked by Ben Solo to console himself with.

“Can you make me relax, too?” He had a habit of tensing up when anticipating pain, which had always been a weakness in weapons training. He’d noticed it too, much to his own disappointment, when he was trying to stretch himself.

“I… think so. Can we try with just my fingers and see how it goes?”

Ben’s hand was still pressing him into the bed, and Hux gripped his wrist, meeting his eyes. “Just take away the pain. Not any of the rest of it.”

Ben nodded. “I can try.”

Hux pushed his hand off and sat up. “I would appreciate more confidence, Ben. Lie if you have to. Tell me this will be okay.”

Ben tried to hide a smirk, and failed. “I can do it.”

Satisfied, Hux laid back down, and Ben slicked his hand and entered him again. It was faster, more urgent this time, and Hux commanded himself to relax into it, to let Ben’s fingers go where they needed to and trust Ben to learn along with him. Before long, the tingling started again, this time followed quickly by a sense of  _Ben_ , pressing him inside and out, different than the heat around them in the room and Ben’s weight pushing him into the mattress.

It’s _because there’s nothing else around to sense, so you only feel me._

“I feel you because you have one hand in my ass and the other on my chest.”

He could sense that Ben was hurt by this, and Hux rolled his eyes and opened himself more. Obviously he was enjoying this. Obviously this was one of the best experiences of his life. Not that there were many contenders, or much to compare it to.

_So you’ve never done this before either?_

“ _Ben_.”

A wave of confidence swept Hux, and he was annoyed, but the sense of Ben seemed to increase. The pleasure from his fingers was intensified as he remembered Hux’s prostate, and after that, slipped a third finger in effortlessly. Hux felt pressure, but nothing else, and began moving his hips to Ben’s rhythm. The smugness and confidence from Ben were there in the back of his mind, but increasingly, Hux was carried away in his arousal, and in an overwhelming sense of _this_ , being with Ben Solo, and the flimsy reason he had concocted to come here.

He had come here to see Ben Solo, and he had succeeded. Ben was sharing his incredible, unique gift with Hux, as well as his equally admirable body. They were doing this, and they were both enjoying it. Hux turned his face into the disgusting Republic sheets, overwhelmed. He reached a hand down to his own erection, not sure how much more of this he could take. Ben was suddenly quite good at it, all hesitance gone, and Hux silently wondered if he was reading his pleasure to figure him out.

 _I am,_  Ben confirmed. _Armitage, can I try to… fuck you now?_

“Ben,” Hux gasped. “You could shoot me through the head with a blaster and I would consent to it. Whatever you are going to do, do it _now_.”

When Ben pulled his fingers out and Hux was empty, he opened his eyes to study Ben, suddenly realizing that the sensation of him was still there. Ben looked at him with disheveled hair, a flush creeping across his face and ears and down his neck.

“Yeah, I… think I can do it without touching you, if we. Are. Like this.” And he looked down again, nudging himself at Hux’s entrance.

“We’re having sex. It’s fine.”

“Yeah. It’s great.”

Hux wrapped his legs around Ben’s waist to raise his hips up, and Ben slid inside incrementally. It wasn’t the easy slide of his fingers, and this time, Hux felt the pressure. It was a lot. A lot. He didn’t want to know what pain Ben was blocking.

“Not much,” Ben was panting. “This is… I don’t know how much I can do this.”

“I don’t know how much I can take. Just get yourself in, and we’ll decide from there.”

And so Ben began the agonizing process of entering, centimeter by endless centimeter. Hux could feel the massive pressure of it, and Ben was making whimpering noises as he was doing so. He looked like he was about to cry again. Hux was beside himself. He didn’t know what he was going to do if Ben did start crying. He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see it.

“Armitage, I-”

“Don’t say anything right now. Keep it to yourself.”

Ben was still a moment, but slid the rest of the way in. He was making a keening noise with each breath, and once he was settled, Hux opened his eyes and studied his face, searing this awkward, incredible moment into his memory for the rest of his life. He reached up and tucked Ben’s hair behind his ears again, only to watch it tumble back around his face. Ben clenched his eyes shut, and Hux did the same, bracing for the next part, telling himself to enjoy it now and remember this when it hurt later.

When Ben had gathered himself, he leaned forward, just as Hux wanted, bearing all his weight onto Hux’s chest, crushing the breath out of him and catching it on his lips.

It was perfect. Hux wrapped his arms around Ben’s broad, slick back and took his mouth savagely, a wave of possessiveness washing through his mind, and he wasn’t sure if it belonged to him or Ben. He was certain Ben was out of his mind with the moment, and Hux thought he might be as well.

He could feel Ben’s throbbing cock inside him and his own trapped between them, his arousal not as urgent as the first orgasm. He would save that for when Ben started.

“Start what?” Ben whispered.

“Moving,” Hux instructed in a voice that was less confident than he would have liked. “Start moving in and out.” He tried to thrust his hips to demonstrate, and Ben groaned.

“I don’t think I can do that for very long.”

“Just a little,” Hux ordered, trying not to beg, working a hand between them to take his cock. “Just a little, and we’ll come together. Can you wait that long?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Just do it.”

"Armitage. I can't. It's so tight. And you're-"

"You can," Hux managed to snap, willing his voice to remain steady. "I'm not holding a blaster to your head, Ben,  It's sex.  Fuck me."

Hux leaned in and took Ben’s lips again, and he felt Ben’s frustration with the order as Ben pulled out incrementally, groaning into Hux’s mouth. He did it slowly, and Hux felt the pressure, regretting suddenly that he told Ben to remove his pain. He realized he didn’t tell Ben to slick his cock.

“I slicked it plenty,” Ben bit out, annoyed. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

“I think you’ve never done this before.”

“Neither have you.”

Hux regretted immensely that Ben could read his thoughts.

“I know my own ass better than you do.”

“Debatable, at this point.”

Hux thrust his hips back onto Ben’s cock, certain he wouldn’t have if he could actually feel the damage he was doing to himself, but beyond caring. All that mattered was making Ben come. He wanted Ben to come inside him, and he closed his eyes, his entire body shuddering at the thought.

“Ben, use your hand on me. Right now. Finish soon.”

“Use my hand how?”

Hux closed his eyes and imagined Ben sitting up, his hand on Hux’s cock, pumping it as he thrust into Hux.

“That’s a lot.”

“Just do it. How much more can you take?”

Ben made a low sound. “Not much.”

“I _know_. Just finish it.”

And Ben did, good at following orders until the end. It only took a few strokes of Ben’s hand to get Hux off, his second orgasm painful so soon after the first, wringing just a few drops of come from his tired cock. He’d never tried masturbating twice together before, and he wondered if he ever would again, or would ever need to again, if Ben came back to the First Order with him.

He thought, vaguely, that Ben’s control must be slipping if he could feel the pain of it, and was suddenly alarmed that Ben was still moving his hips frantically. But Ben came almost immediately after, with a groaning sound and both hands braced on either side of Hux. Hux had come so little, he wondered if Ben was experiencing the same, after there had been so much before. It was hard to tell.  His entire body seemed to flex with the effort of it, his muscles standing out, his teeth clenched.  He was either absolutely filling Hux's ass, or taking a moment to enjoy it.

After a moment Ben pulled out and rolled onto his back, not bothering to open his eyes. Hux felt his absence, wanting Ben’s weight on top of him. He put his hand to himself, coming away with plenty of come and lube, but thankfully no blood. He knew that he perhaps shouldn’t have asked for this kind of sex, but he was glad he didn’t appear to have torn anything. To make himself feel better, he grabbed a handful of the Republican sheets and cleaned himself with them.

He began to feel the first edges of pain, surprisingly cock-first. He had an ache in his abdomen, cock, and balls, likely from the second orgasm. He groaned as the weight of it hit him, then the burn of his ass soon after. That hurt, though not as much as he deserved. He hoped it would be better once he slept.

Ben was still gasping on the bed next to him, and Hux rolled his head to the side to study him. His eyes were closed, his mouth slightly open, revealing parted teeth behind his still-ridiculous lips. His hair was hanging over his face, leaving one large ear exposed. Hux hadn’t gotten a good look at his body earlier, the powerful shoulder and neck muscles, his biceps and chest, his thighs, the moles and hair scattered over his skin. When Hux squinted, he could even see the beginning of a beard on his face, as if he didn’t use shaving tech. Perhaps that was a Jedi thing. Maybe he used real blades every morning.

Ben’s eyes opened, and he brushed his hair out of his face, looking over at Hux.

“Is there anything else you want to do?”

Hux propped himself up on his elbow, answering honestly, deciding to deal with the rest of it in the morning. “Plenty.”

Ben sighed, rolling over so his back faced Hux. “Can we rest first? Maybe talk for a while?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be some sort of warrior? Are you that easy to exhaust?”

“That wasn’t easy,” Ben snapped in response. It wasn’t, not really, but Hux didn’t want to say so aloud. Instead, he said the next impulsive thing that came to mind.

"You know I don't do this."

"Do what?"  Ben stayed facing away from him, which made the confession easier.

"I don't spend three days traveling to immediately get into bed with the first celebrity I meet."

"Celebrity?" Ben rolled back over, though he was hiding his expression with a hand over his face. "I'm not a celebrity. But have you met one? How do you know you wouldn't?"

Hux scowled, looking down and bunching the dirty fabric of the sheet in his hand.  "I went along with you, and I shouldn't have."

Ben rolled the rest of the way over, his expression clouding. "You shouldn't have?"

"It's not-" Hux stopped rolling his eyes. "I don't regret it. In fact, I plan on doing it again. But it's... I shouldn't have. You must know that it went too fast."

Ben's fingers went through his hair, and his expression cleared. "I think it happened exactly how it was supposed to." He paused for a moment, and Hux was annoyed that he once again had no words for that. Before he could think of something to say, Ben continued, his voice lower, more unsure.

"I've never met anyone-"

Hux looked up, alarmed, not wanting Ben to go any further. He interrupted, blurting out the first thing he'd thought of when he'd seen Ben without clothes.

“What are you wearing to your sword demonstration tomorrow?”

“What am I _wearing_?” Ben asked, incredulous.

“Yes. Are you wearing your full robe, or just the tunic?”

Ben shook his head. “Neither.”

“Then the same thing you wore last time?”

Ben sat up. “Last time? Because you remember.”

“If you recall, I am a big fan of your sword demonstration holos. It’s what brought me all the way across the galaxy into your bed.”

“Hmm.” Ben was less embarrassed by this than Hux hoped, and he watched, annoyed, as Ben sank back down into the bed, satisfied, rolling himself in the black sheet, pulling it out from under Hux. “You’re right. Yes, I wear the same thing for all my sword work.”

“Low collar, no sleeves?”

“Yes.”

“And the collar ends… just here.” Hux leaned over him, tracing a line across his chest and over his shoulder.

“Yes.” Ben closed his eyes, grinning, entirely too satisfied with himself.

“I want to leave a mark that will be visible during the demonstration tomorrow.”

Ben shrugged. “Whatever.”

So Hux leaned over, biting Ben’s shoulder just below the join of muscle to his neck. Ben _hmmmmmed_  in pleasure, but didn’t stir or open his eyes. Hux sucked hard and pulled back to reveal an angry red mark, sure to turn into a purple bruise.

He thought about all the time he'd spent watching Ben Solo perform with his lightsaber, and the way he'd hoarded and treasured those moments where the sleeves pulled back and offered a glimpse of forearm, where the collar pulled at the shoulder and more chest became visible. He thought about viewing the holo of Ben’s sword demonstration back home at his posting, and seeing the mark there as his collar pulled at the shoulder. He thought about everyone who viewed the holo seeing the mark there.

He made a similar noise, also pleased with himself.


	6. Part One: Equitan - Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vague warning: Ren is ill and very weak, and Hux doesn't take it well. See the notes at the bottom if you need more details about a possible body image issue.

There was something vaguely awful about finding Ren in the place where they had met, on a planet they had destroyed together, after he had tried so hard to avoid it.

He almost didn’t believe it was Ren, as if his mind had conjured him through the combination of wanting to see him badly enough and trying not to think of his memories of this place. Those memories had happened in another time, to a different set of people. Quite literally, now.  But here they stood, in the ridiculously idyllic and well-maintained public park in front of the New Republic Senate, with its well-trimmed trees in full leaf, its neatly kept paths of broad stone through clipped grass, its beds of flowers, its crowds of children laughing and playing.

Ren’s physical appearance didn’t help him parse reality from fantasy. He looked like a wraith, skin even paler than it had been aboard the starships, burning red in the light of the Hosnian sun at his shoulders and along the bridge of his nose. He was wearing only a low-slung pair of blue sleep pants, and was otherwise barefoot and shirtless. His numerous scars were absent from his torso and arms, as if a lifetime of combat had been erased, and his hair had been cut shorter than Hux had ever seen it. Ren would have never cut it like that.  Hux knew he kept it long to cover his ears, even when he wore a helmet to cover them.

More shocking than all of that, however, was the fact that Ren’s body was wasted down to skin and bones. His bulk was gone, all his broad muscles and the soft flesh around them, and he was nearly emaciated, likely weighting less than Hux. His collarbones and ribs stood out sharply, his hips jutted above the waistband of his pants. His face was gaunt and angular. Even as a Jedi student, when he had been much less fit than he later kept himself, he’d never weighed so little. It was alarming.

But still it was Ren, looking at Hux as if he had stepped into a confusing dream. His brow was pinched, the corners of his mouth quivered, and his hands at his sides had a slight tremor. His brown eyes were nearly amber where his pupils had shrunk in the bright light of the sun. Hux stood, and Ren’s eyes followed him slowly. His eyes were broadcasting his emotion, just as they always did, so clearly that Hux was struck by the old impulse to snap at him to guard his thoughts.

Ren was shocked, yes, but not pleasantly. Hux could identify his self-directed loathing, as if seeing Hux again was a punishment that he had resigned himself to deal with. That the sight of Hux inspired this kind of spiraling sadness in Ren extinguished Hux’s own surge of fierce excitement, his disbelief. He reigned his emotions back in, stared at Ren, waited.

When Ren didn’t move any closer or speak, Hux swallowed, taking a step forward himself.

“Ren.”

Ren blinked, and Hux saw tears fill his eyes. Hux's voice was apparently the signal Ren had needed, and he took several steps to close the distance between them. Something inside Hux unwound with each step, and he raised his hands in an abortive gesture, unsure what to do.

“ _Hux_ ,” Ren managed in an obviously unused voice, hoarse and much deeper than usual, before crushing him into a hug. His arms were obviously weak, though it didn’t matter because Hux was doing the same thing, because Ren was real and not just a desperate delusion. Hux dug his gloved fingers into the prominent ribs he felt in Ren’s back and buried his face in his neck, inhaling the scent of him. The unwashed smell of Ren’s sweat was the same as it always had been, and Hux tucked his face deeper, hiding his eyes, feeling his command cap slip up high on his forehead, mussing his hair.

He held Ren long enough to grow embarrassed, then gave himself to a count of five to pull back, smoothing his hair and rearranging his cap. He stared at Ren as he did so, taking in the strangeness of his face. The prominent scar from Starkiller was gone, just as conspicuous as the rest of the changes, perhaps even moreso since Ren had been so sensitive about it. Ren currently appeared lost, a particularly Ren expression that Hux had seen so rarely in recent years. It was a look that begged for Hux to tell him what to do.

“It is you. Kylo Ren.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement, something that Hux would never be wrong about.

“Yeah. _Hux_. I knew you’d come for me.”

Ren moved his arms around Hux’s neck and slouched, burying his face into Hux’s chest. Hux draped his arms awkwardly over Ren's shoulders, staring down into the unfamiliar shortness of his dark hair. He was overwhelmed, still trying to gain his mental footing. What was happening now, and what _had_  happened to Ren? It somehow looked like both too much and maybe not enough.

“Ren. I did. Ren, _this is important_.” Hux would normally have curled a gloved fist into the back of Ren’s hair and pulled, but instead he tucked his fingers under Ren’s chin and guided his head back up, noticing the dark stubble on his cheeks and chin. Ren hated being unshaven. He dismissed it. A stupid detail, it didn’t matter.

He looked into Ren’s eyes, which were still full of unshed tears, and saw a deep sadness that hadn’t been there before, along with recognition, hope. Hux latched onto the latter.

“It’s important, Ren. The most important thing. _Do you remember_?”

Ren nodded. “Everything. I remember everything. I’ve been waiting for you to come get me.”

His reply was confident, and Hux was sure, completely sure, that Ren shared all the same memories. But even as a nearly wearying bone-deep relief washed through him, he was still troubled by this wasted, shirtless version of Ren wandering through a crowded park in Republic City. And then the second part of Ren’s statement caught up to him.

“Why were you waiting? Do you have any idea how hard it was to find you? I… did a lot,” he bit out thinly, not willing to offer those particular trials yet. “And if you remember everything, you’d know perfectly well how to contact the First Order. Why didn’t you come to _me_?”

It would have saved Hux money. Time. Sanity. For a week, he had doubted his memories and his sanity. And all this time, Ren could have-

“You _know my personal comm_ , Ren! My emergency frequency! I would have- I would have answered it!”

“How was I supposed to know when to use it?”

“ _What_? Any time this week, Ren! Waking up in a strange bed might have been your first clue!” This was infuriating, and he probably should have expected this reunion to be a mess. He tried to reign his anger in, but-

“You didn’t miss me when I wasn’t there?” he blurted. It sounded sentimental aloud, and Hux could admit that it was, of course. But there was the practicality of it as well. How had Ren managed for a week without him? Apparently not well.

Ren seemed to be feeding off Hux’s temper, as he always did. Fighting with Ren was always a lost cause.

“Of course I missed you! I always miss you!” The volume of this statement was alarming, and Hux’s eyes darted around the plaza to see if they were drawing a crowd. Amazingly, two grown men shouting at each other, one in full military dress and another nearly naked, was not something others remarked on in Republic City.

When he looked back at Ren, fists clenched and trying to decide how to take this someplace less public, the anger on Ren’s face disappeared, changing first to shock, then understanding, then a more grave expression. He moved his hands to Hux’s waist again, nodding in agreement.

“That’s when the visions stopped. I guess that makes sense.”

“What visions?”

“The visions of you.”

“What was I doing, in those visions?”

Ren frowned, his brows drawing together in what looked like a hint of his usual impatience. “We were together. In the First Order. We’d-” He took a step back, and looked around the park furtively. “We stopped the New Republic. You know. With Starkiller. About a year back.”

Hux stared at him, not comprehending. “But you were there with me.”

Ren tapped the side of his head. “Yeah. In all the visions.”

Hux’s sense of worry and unease related to Ren’s appearance suddenly got worse, twisting in his stomach and nearly making him ill. It hit him suddenly that the ringing sensation in his head was still there, but Ren was not. The ringing, nagging emptiness was the absence of Ren. Ren still wasn’t there, despite standing right in front of him.

He stepped forward, grabbing Ren’s shoulders again, wanting to shake him. He didn't.  He controlled himself, pitched his voice low. “It wasn’t a vision! You were there with me, for all of it!”

Ren nodded slowly, looking around the park again. “It seemed real. I was here, but never really. I was always with you.”

Hux looked at him hopelessly. “You always were with me, and the First Order. Ren, those weren’t visions, those _actually happened_. But I woke up a week ago… you were gone, and I was the only person who believed it. That’s why-”

Hux clamped his mouth shut. Ren looked and sounded like someone who wasn’t taken seriously. Hux was approaching that point. Still, the slow confidence that seeped back into Ren’s eyes did much to calm him.

“I believe it. I remember.”

“Ren. Tell me exactly what happened. What you remember. How-” Hux stepped back, letting the worry creep into his voice. He gestured to Ren’s body with one hand. “How this happened to you in a week. And why aren’t you-” he stopped, hating that he had to say it out loud. “Why aren’t you reading my thoughts?”

“Fine. We can talk. But first, Hux, can we-”

He stepped forward and kissed Hux, which took Hux off guard. They hadn’t really kissed like this in years, and Hux found himself leaning into it, allowing it, though he shouldn’t have. It was a frivolous indulgence, and not something they should be doing when they still needed to fix everything else. Still, he dropped his hands to Ren’s bare waist and allowed it for longer than he should. He gave himself another count of five before he pulled his lips away. Ren drew back lazily, smirking and looking more like his smug, confident self.

“Yeah. I needed that.”

His thoughts hadn’t wrapped around Hux’s, and Hux hadn’t _felt_ just how much Ren needed it, though his expression was plain enough. He missed Ren's thoughts, badly, and the ill feeling continued to twist in his stomach, the empty place ringing painfully in his head. Still, this was growing increasingly ridiculous, and they needed privacy.

“Fine. Accepted. Is there any place we can go that isn’t-” he gestured once again to the park, looking at the white sun-drenched facade of the Senate building. The Senate would adjourn soon, and a crowd of people would emerge, one of them being Leia Organa. “That isn’t in the park? We’re too old for this.”

Ren raised an eyebrow. “Are we?”

“ _Ren_.”

Ren rolled his eyes, stepping back from Hux’s personal space. “Hux. I still know just as much about Republic City as you do. Between the two of us, we might be able to destroy it, but I don't think either of us knows where rooms are. I know you have a datapad. Look it up.”

Hux scowled, but pulled the datapad out of his pocket and began looking up nearby accommodations. “Fine. I don’t have any credits, so you’ll have to magic us in.”

“What, the First Order isn’t good for it anymore?”

“Snoke made me use my own money to locate you, and I ran out.”

Ren huffed, and Hux couldn’t tell if it was laughter or annoyance. A pang went through him at that - it was a symptom of Ren not being in his thoughts. He pushed it away for now. Ren would tell him about that soon.

Hux found a suitable luxury hotel that catered to visiting Senatorial guests nearby. Something about stealing the room from such a decadent, unnecessary business felt right. He entered Kylo Ren’s name on a reservation and stowed the tech.

“The First Order is not how you remember it, Ren. It’s different. It’s been set back over ten years.”

"What? Set back how?  Like... smaller?  Weaker?"

"Yes.  Less territory.  Less ships.  Less advanced weapons.  All the training we've done, all of it's gone."

"How?  Did Snoke allow it?"

"Snoke doesn't know.  Doesn't remember.  Only you and I do."

“Snoke doesn’t remember me?” His face folded in confusion, and he looked genuinely hurt by the news.

“He says he doesn’t. I believe him. I had to convince him to let me get you.”

“But the visions I was getting through the Force… I thought Snoke was sending them?”

"Apparently not," he answered flatly, bothered suddenly by Ren's interest in Snoke.

Rather than address that, he turned and began leading the way along the smooth stone path beneath the trees and out of the park, to the busy public walkways and the tall monolithic buildings and lines of speeder traffic that dominated the busy center of Republic City.  The crowds were much how Hux remembered them - expensive single occupant speeders, crowds of different beings dressed in gauzy bright fabrics pressed entirely too close together, all fighting each other to get to their destinations in a mass scramble that made Hux clench his jaw to an ache.  Their hotel was very close, and he didn't need to consult his datapad for directions, could see the gaudy sign advertising the high-end services from where they emerged from the park.

Though it was barely audible over the noise of the crowd, still he could hear the irritating slap of Ren’s bare feet on the rockcrete walk behind him. His feet would be filthy when they finally got their room, but Ren would have to shave and dress anyway.

“Why would Snoke have all of your personal memories?” he continued, loathe to continue the conversation about Snoke, but curious now.

“He could take them at any time. Sometimes he did.”

Hux frowned again, looking over his shoulder. “Why would you let him do that?”

He was more than a little troubled by Snoke seeing what went on between them. Aside from their personal life being none of his business-

_I have seen the filth inside your head_

-they had also occasionally spoken of how Snoke would be disposed of. But if Snoke had seen any of that, Hux was certain he would have killed both of them immediately, regardless of their talents.

“I didn’t _let_  him.” Ren sounded annoyed by the admission. “I was still gaining strength. He won’t be able to do it much longer.”

“I’d make that a priority,” Hux answered lightly. In order to set things right, they would have to move quickly when Ren got back, which meant that Ren would need to eliminate Snoke. They’d have to be careful about it. With the knowledge that he had free access to Ren’s memories, they’d likely have to do it as soon as Hux presented Ren. That could be arranged. They'd only need to delay two, perhaps three days when they got back.  He’d simply have to replace the Praetorian guards with his own staff, order the Black Ops to eliminate them one by one-

“I’m certain Snoke didn’t have your memories, because he would have already collected you.” Hux turned to glare at him. “Remember which of us remembered you, next time you decide to consult Snoke rather than taking advice from me.”

Ren scowled, looking sullen and even more like himself. This was increasingly like a conversation they’d have together. Ren’s shorn hair, lack of scars, and emaciated appearance were still throwing Hux off, but when he faced forward he could simply pretend that Ren’s unnaturally low, gravely voice was simply a cold.

“You know I have to consult Snoke,” Ren said darkly. This was pushing into more actively antagonistic territory, something they fought over constantly. “He’d kill us both if he thought we were acting behind his back.”

“Speaking of acting behind his back…” Hux _hmmmmmed_ as they began climbing the wide stone staircase leading up to the main entrance of the hotel. “That’s a conversation we’ll have presently. But for now, do you recognize this place?” He quickened his pace, gesturing to the elaborate etched glass of the entryway, a stream of well-dressed beings coming and going through the doors.

“No. I told you, I don’t know anything about Republic City.”

Hux shifted his eyes to the side, but didn't turn to fully look at him. “You said you were here and had visions, though.”

“Yeah, but it was… nevermind,” he mumbled, then fell silent. Hux badly wanted to know what he meant, but knew better than to push him in public. It would need to be one of the first things they spoke about when they reached their rooms.

Hux rolled his eyes as he pushed through the elaborately decorated entrance into the equally ridiculous lobby, which was all vaulted gold ceilings, smooth white stone, enormous paintings, and delicate useless furniture. He straightened his hat and brushed at the shoulders of his coat, then continued his quick, purposeful steps through the lobby. They passed groups of tourists that openly stared at Ren. Hux belatedly realized he looked like he’d just stepped out of a bacta tank. He glanced over, seeing a pair of guards shifting their hands down to the stunners on their belt. He smirked. Let them try that.

He walked up to the desk, pushing through a group of aliens that stared at him, rather than Ren. Hux ignored them, fixing an imperious stare on the clerk. She was human, and likely spoke Basic, so Hux began the conversation that would give Ren the opening he needed for his Force deception.

“We reserved a room not long ago, under the name Kylo Ren.”

She tapped at her screen, beaming at him, her eyes never going to Ren. “Of course, Mister Ren. You did not enter the proper credit transfer, so if you could take care of that now, I’d appreciate it.”

He scowled at being acknowledged as _Mr. Ren_. He waved Ren forward. “This is Kylo Ren, and we're using his credits today. Ren,” he turned, barking the order, knowing that this made it easier for him. “Give her your credit chip.”

Ren waved his palm carelessly in the air. “I already gave you my credit chip. Override the error on the screen.”

The woman’s face folded in confusion. “Sir? I’ve not seen you before today, and you most certainly did not give me a credit chip.” Her eyes moved down to the waist of his low-slung pants, which obviously didn’t have any pockets. “I’ll need it now, though.” She looked back over to Hux. “From either of you would be fine.”

Her tone managed to sound bright, but Hux could tell she was confused. He looked to Ren, stunned. He’d never seen Ren fail one of his deceptions before.

Ren looked flustered, and waved his hand again. “You’ve already seen my credit chip.”

She shook her head slowly. “No, I haven’t.” She turned to Hux again. “Sir, your… ward does not have a form of payment. You’ll need to use your own credit chip.” She held out her hand expectantly.

The word _ward_  echoed through Hux’s mind briefly, and he turned to take in Ren’s shabby appearance once again. Ren looked like a desperate spice addict as he leaned forward on the counter, his long fingers clenching around the edge until the knuckles were white.

“No! You have mine. You already took it.” Ren’s face was growing dark, and the volume of his voice was once again far too loud. In the past, this kind of outburst from Ren would have caused even Hux’s trained soldiers to cower. Here and now, the clerk simply raised her brows and glanced behind Ren and Hux, likely at the security guards.

Hux’s hand shot out and squeezed Ren’s wrist hard enough that he felt bones grind together. He hadn’t been able to do that before. But he pushed the thought away, and continued speaking to the clerk.

“There seems to be some mistake,” Hux tried smoothly, keeping his face impassive. “And he’s not well, as you can see.”

“Not well! Fuck you, Hux!” Ren rounded on him, trying to pull his wrist free. He couldn’t, and this time they both paused, looking at Hux’s hand on Ren’s. Ren looked up at him in surprise, then remembered to be angry.

“I _am_  well! She’s the one that-” He pointed with his other hand, then turned to the clerk, apoplectic, his expression twisted and dangerous.

“Is there a problem here, sir?” A clawed reptilian hand clamped down on Ren’s bare shoulder, and the Yinchorri guards were both studying them from a height of two meters, their black eyes gazing down, expressionless.

“No. Well, yes. He misplaced his credit chip.” Hux pulled his hand away from Ren’s, pulling out his datapad and making a show of looking harassed. “And it had all the funds for this trip on it. I’m afraid we’ll have to have another one fabricated.”

“You can just give me the account, sir. We can make the transfer without the chip.”

Hux impulsively shot the clerk a look, loathing her, before glancing back down.

“No. As you can imagine, this is incredibly inconvenient, and I’d like to sort it out before we make further arrangements.”

Ren had turned back to the counter, still visibly furious. He gripped the edge with one hand, waving the other through the air.

“You saw it. We already paid. This is all a mistake.”

“Ren,” Hux said sharply, his eyes cutting over to the guards. He didn’t necessarily want their names attached to this incident. But he had given Kylo Ren’s name on the reservation, of course. Belatedly, he remembered that Kylo Ren wouldn’t be recognized here. The same way Hux wasn’t, not really.

Hux grabbed Ren’s wrist again. “You’re right, it is a mistake. This place shouldn’t exist at all.” Ren’s gaze cut over to meet Hux’s fury, and he visibly calmed. Hux shot another imperious look at the guards before pulling Ren out behind him.

“We were just leaving.”

Hux managed to salvage his dignity, or at least not get pursued by the guards, but he wondered if they’d bother to call the incident in. They didn’t need police reports following them around.

Hux drug Ren into a narrow alley next to the massive hotel complex, dark for how tall the buildings were. Away from the opulent lobby and the idyllic city center and the crush of people on the streets, Hux slung him bodily into one of the walls, his bare back hitting the rough brickwork on the side of the building. He winced at the ease, and watched Ren’s face wince in pain, which only made him angrier.

“What was that, in there?” Hux pointed with one hand, squeezing Ren’s left shoulder tightly with the other.

“It was nothing!” It came out high, almost a whine, and Ren looked at the alley entrance, his face a mix of confusion and anger. “She was just… more strong-willed than I thought.”

Hux shoved him hard against the wall again, pressing both hands into his chest, and bringing Ren’s attention back to him.

“Bantha shit, Kylo Ren. A _hotel clerk_  would never hold against your powers. I’ve seen you do more without even glancing up, not even making your hand gesture.” He brought one of his hands away, wigging his gloved fingers in the air between them.

Hux realized he was losing his composure, took a step back, breathed. He studied Ren, who was still obviously angry, though now he was looking more panicked. He would get defensive and shut down, and Hux would get little out of him in this state. He needed to know what was happening.

“Ren. You’re obviously…” Hux waved a hand in front of him, gesturing to Ren’s body. “Something happened to you this week. You’re wandering around Republic City in just a pair of pants, and you look as if you haven’t eaten in a year.” Hux looked into his eyes, held his gaze until he sensed that Ren’s agitation was gone, that he had his full attention. With a shiver, he once again felt the complete absence of Ren’s presence pressing in on him, something that had always been a part of his attention for all the years Hux had known him.

He avoided that for now, rushing to the next part of what he was saying. “I woke up six days ago and the First Order was… so much less, Ren. As if everything I know is wrong. You’re the only one that remembers, and you’re here on Hosnian Prime, which shouldn't exist. We need to figure this out together, Ren. So. Tell me what’s wrong.”

He saw the tears well in Ren’s eyes again, and he clenched his jaw against a sigh.

“ _Hux_. I knew you’d come. I knew you’d understand me.”

“ _Ren_. You know I’m not patient. Or particularly tolerant of whatever you’re doing right now. Just tell me why your powers aren’t working. Start there.”

Ren frowned, and whatever emotion had been torturing him before vanished. “You’re very patient, when you want to be.”

“But not often when it benefits you. _Ren_. Your powers. _What happened_.”

Ren’s gaze strayed over his shoulder, then up and out the entrance of the alley. His fingers pressed to the brick wall behind him, rubbing the grout in an idle gesture, considering.

“The Force. It’s not… like it was in the visions.” His eyes went back to Hux. “Or like it was when I was younger. When I’m awake, it doesn’t move through me like it should, and I haven’t… reached for it, tried to manipulate it in… a long time. It’s harder for me to do now, outside the visions. I guess. I hadn’t tried it before today.” He finished, then looked down.

Hux didn’t know what that meant. But he was used to vague, impractical explanations from Ren, and resigned himself to a long and circular conversation. “You keep mentioning the visions, Ren. What visions?”

His eyes went back to Hux, that manic edge in them. “The visions of us. Of the First Order. What we did with our lives there.”

Hux scowled. “What do you mean, visions? You don’t remember it happening?”

Ren took a step away from the wall. “I remember it. All of it. I saw it.” His eyes widened. “It started with a vision of you. I was leaving the Senate, and I was overtaken with a sudden… sensation in the Force, of reality overlapping. I saw you standing outside the main entrance, leaning against one of the columns, except you weren’t really there. And it went on. We had a conversation. We went to the park, we went to my hotel room. All of it was… real. Like it was happening.” He took another step forward, and Hux took a step back. “I could _taste_  you, Hux. It was… a lot. I collapsed while it was happening, and they took me back to the rooms.” He blinked, then looked back at the mouth of the alley, at the crowd passing. “It kept going, through the demonstration the next day, and when you told me about the First Order, and when we went to Exitens. When you left.” He turned back. “All of it was real, and I wanted it so badly.”

Hux opened his mouth, not sure what to make of this. It was his last thread of sanity, slipping away. The empty place in his mind where Ren went began to ache harder than ever. “It did happen, Ren. I came here to get you. We went to Exitens. You said no. You chose your family. All of that happened. You don’t remember?”

Ren frowned, shaking his head. “It was a vision. I woke up at the end of it, after you left me. But you’d never been here, and we didn’t meet.”

“No. Everything you just said, all those things happened.” Hux was shaking his head. It was true. It had to be.

“It should have been real. I was real, for me. And for you, too. But for everyone here, I was in a trance all week, asleep, and they couldn’t reach me.” Ren was still looking out into the alley, but turned back, his unsettling gaze fixed on Hux again.

“I was obsessed with finding you after that, I knew you had to exist. I didn’t go back to the Academy with Uncle Luke, I stayed in my mother’s rooms in Hosnian City. Everyone hated that. The other students. My mother especially. They even got my father to come and convince me to go back to the Academy. Luke eventually…” He swallowed, scowling. “It was my uncle that finally made everyone else believe I was fine. He was eventually okay with it, said the Force must have showed me something important, and got everyone to back off. So I got my own rooms after that and started researching the First Order. My mother hated it. She’d been trying to convince the other Senators that the Order was a real threat for years, based only on the rumors. I used her files to track you, but mostly did my own research. It was hard. The First Order stayed clear of Republic space back then. Not even Dac had records of it, and my inquires came back empty.” He paused, took a step forward again. Hux backed up again, putting the two of them nearly in the middle of the alley. “I was looking for you.”

Hux’s eyebrows went up. “I was there. You knew where I was posted.”

Ren shook his head. “I didn’t know that until the visions started again.” His mouth twitched down. “You didn’t tell me.”

No, he hadn’t. Hux had been quite upset when they parted, which is why Ren had given him the kyber crystal. Hux’s hand went to its absence now, touched the front of his tunic where it should have lain against his chest, and Ren glanced down, nodding.

“Yeah, that. But I still had it, so I couldn’t use it to find you. There wasn’t any record of you in Republic space, and the rumors of you and your father I could track to First Order territories didn’t go anywhere.” Ren’s mouth twitched up this time. “I couldn’t believe you had hidden the Order so well.”

Hux frowned. “It probably would have been easier to find, before. But there’s not much of it there now.” He clenched his fists, trying to make sense of this. “You said the visions started again. When?”

Ren’s gaze moved down again. “When Luke betrayed me. That night.”

“It happened again? You made him sound like… an ally.”

Ren’s eyes were fierce when he looked back up. “It didn’t happen like that. I lived by myself and was mostly independent, but my mother had restricted my travel. I think she was worried I would run off to join you. But even alone, in my own room, what Luke did was…” He clenched his fists, looking out in the alley. “I knew the me in the vision had made the wrong choice when I said I wouldn’t go with you. I knew it all along. But that betrayal made me certain I needed to join the First Order, to find you and get away from here.”

As much as Hux agreed with all this, it was still a little unclear. “So you decided to leave your family based on… a betrayal you saw in a vision, that didn’t actually happen.”

His gaze met Hux’s again, and it was full of rage and desperation. It was how he looked just before he had been provoked a step too far. Hux wondered how he would react here, if he was pushed past breaking.

“It was the same vision that made me sure I needed to find you. So yes. I was sure that it was the Force telling me what I needed to do with my life.”

Hux inclined his head, leaving Ren’s decisions to himself for the moment. “So… your family stopped you?”

Ren sighed, some of his anger draining away, and he looked out to the alley entrance again. “Yes… but it was mostly the visions. They didn’t stop coming after that, and they were all-consuming. I was… only awake, here, when I was sleeping in them.” He looked at Hux again. “I tried to run away to the Order several times, but I would lapse into a vision soon after boarding the transport, and sometimes would have them for several days. Snoke’s training. I didn’t sleep, at first. You know.”

Hux held his gaze steadily. He always seemed tired and haunted when returning from his training with Snoke. He had never actually said outright that he wasn’t sleeping when he was there, but Hux had always suspected.

“So they sent me to a hospital, where they could take care of me. Eventually I stopped running away, because I knew I couldn’t get far.” His eyes found Hux’s again. “I knew it was real though, and I knew you would come find me.”

Hux sighed quietly, looking Ren up and down again. Ren was sometimes prone to lies if it served him, but too much of this had a ring of sour truth to it.

“So you simply… slept for fourteen years. Dreaming.”

Ren took another step forward, and this time Hux allowed it, let their chests press together, let Ren take his hands and hold them at their sides. “I was waiting for you. Why did it take so long for you to come?”

Hux pressed his lips together, furious, before responding. “I told you, Ren. I woke up six days ago, and everything was wrong. You were… you were with me until then.” He shook his head again, harder, frustrated and angry. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He resented the accusation that he would have… that he would have left Ren for so long by himself and done nothing. He hadn’t. Hux had sought him as soon as he went missing. He wasn’t supposed to find this tired and very sick man at the end. He was supposed to find Kylo Ren.

Ren was supposed to have the answers. He let his expression harden, let some of it show in his expression. “You weren’t _sleeping_ , waiting for me to pick you up at the capital of New Republic space. I didn’t leave you. You were _in my bed_.”

Ren inclined his head. “The visions stopped when we went to Ventu. Down to the artifacts.”

Hux huffed. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Ren shook his head, and Hux missed the way his hair moved around his ears when he did it. “Why was that where the visions stopped?”

“Ren, they aren’t _visions_!” Hux yanked his hands away from Ren’s grip, shouting and losing his composure in a way he knew he shouldn’t, even in front of Ren. But this was true. This absolutely needed to be true.

Ren pushed him back, furious himself. There was no power in the shove. Still, Hux tripped backwards, his back hitting the opposite wall of the alley, and he caught himself before he slid down. Hux was stunned. They rarely shoved each other.

“How do you know that they're _not_ visions? How do you know you didn’t dream it all before you decided to come get me?”

Hux’s mind blanked, refusing the possibility. Refusing the question. No. “Because that’s ridiculous!” He stepped forward again. “I don’t remember anything else, Ren! This… what you’re telling me, I have no alternate memory where I simply _didn’t pick you up_  when I graduated from the academy! That happened! And a year later, you came with me! I never. I never would have _left you_  anywhere!”

“Then why am I here, Hux, and not on the _Finalizer_? Why is this planet here at all?”

Ren’s voice had risen, and he was shouting at full volume in Hux’s face. And Ren always won shouting matches, because Hux didn’t care to engage him when he got like this. Also, Ren’s rage typically coiled through his thoughts, making it difficult to separate his own from Ren’s, and he hated arguing like that.

The absence of Ren’s rage now made his stomach twist again, his head ache.

Ren had also made an accusation that he could neither refute or ignore. Against his will, he glanced up at the sky to look at two other planets in the Hosnian system, visible at this time of day.

Ren, sensing his advantage, pressed it. “Why do those planets hang in the sky? Why does this sky exist at all, and why does that sun still rise and set here? I’ve been here since Starkiller happened, Hux! I…” He closed his eyes, opened them again, somewhat calmer, regulating his voice. “I was on the _Finalizer_  when you fired Starkiller. I didn’t tell you, it was because I could sense their deaths. I'd heard... stories, about the Death Star, and I didn't... want to be around anyone. Because I know there would be a disturbance in the Force. There was. It was... not like anything I'd sensed before." Something passed over his expression, and stayed there. "It hit me and I passed out. I woke up on _Hosnian Prime_  after that. Do you know what that did to me?”

Hux recoiled internally. No. He didn’t particularly want to contemplate that. And it was true - Ren had been absent from the firing ceremony, much to Hux’s annoyance. He had wanted to present a united front, especially with Snoke also absent. He had told himself neither was necessary, that this simply made him the recognizable face of the First Order, that it was now his own achievement.

Still, he and Ren had fought about it, before and after. Ren had never told him why he hadn’t attended. It would have been like him to conceal a weakness like that, even from Hux. Hux wouldn’t have taken it as an excuse.

Rather than admitting this aloud, he dropped his gaze, then looked over to the alley entrance himself, to the passing crowd lit bright by the Hosnian sun.

“We need to find a more private place to have this conversation,” he muttered, suddenly feeling conspicuous, knowing he stood out in his uniform, thinking of how much it had bothered him the first time he’d come here. He looked back at Ren. “If we go to a different motel…” He searched for a euphemism, something that didn’t disparage Ren’s current condition. Much as he wanted to point it out. “We need to find rental rooms where the clerk is perhaps… not as vigilant at their job. Would that help?”

“Not as vigilant?”

“A dump, Ren. Somewhere that’s cheap, where the clerk on duty is warming a seat and collecting a paycheck. Can you trick such a being into allowing us a room?”

Ren visibly calmed, looking back up into the sky, closing his eyes for a moment, then looking back at Hux. “Yes. I can do that. The kind of place where they won’t care if we paid or not.”

“Exactly.” Before he’d even finished speaking, he had his datapad out, doing a search for low-end rooms. He cursed - they were currently in the city center, where there were only expensive accommodations catering to the Senate and businesses in the area.

But Republic City had its slums, of course, as all things were not equal in the New Republic. Not even in the capital. Hux looked at the map, annoyed.

“It’s several kilometers away. We’ll have to walk.” Hux didn’t have credits for a transport. Ren barely had pants. He scowled as he stowed his datapad.

Ren’s eyebrows went up. “You’re walking? A kilometer? Planetside?”

Before he could finish, Hux had pushed past him and left the alley.

 

* * *

 

Hux regretted the walk after only two kilometers. Without clothes, Ren’s pale skin had burned bright red, and he was cutting his bare feet on the pavement. They’d had to stop several times, as Ren was the one winded by the effort of walking, and otherwise physically exhausted. After an hour, they’d gone into one of the free med clinics to have Ren treated for exhaustion, and to collect ointment and bacta for his sunburns and feet. He also had scrapes on his back, from where Hux had shoved him against the brick wall. He shouldn’t have - Ren wasn’t that delicate. Hux’s gaze lingered on them.

“Get him some shoes!” the attendant alien had suggested, and Hux had nearly pulled out his blaster and shot him.

The walk took twice as long as it should have, and Hux chose not to comment on Ren’s condition, congratulating himself on holding his tongue through all this. It helped to remember how panicked he’d been all week while looking for Ren. He’d found him. They were together now.

They passed from the well-kept, gaudy city center, full of beings dressed in bright colors and flowing garments, through a more modest area that was simply well-kept, with families and beings walking briskly in more business-like clothing. It was more like what Hux pictured prosperity to be, with plain buildings, multi-story dwellings, simple furniture and needs in the windows of the shops. There were strips of well-kept grass, white pieces of marble abstract art. It wasn’t opulent, it was functional. Clean. Orderly.

“Stop staring,” Ren mumbled from behind Hux. He glared at him over his shoulder.

“I’m just enjoying the scenery.”

“I didn’t think you were able to enjoy anything in this city.”

“Well. I enjoy things in moderation.”

“I know you do, Hux. That’s why I know you’re staring and what you’re thinking without even reading your mind.”

Hux huffed. “You can’t read my mind that well anyway.”

“You think so.”

It was a flat statement, and this was a well-worn argument. They could take it to its logical conclusion - Hux insisting that if Ren could read his mind and still act the way he did he was the most insensitive being in the galaxy, Ren insisting that he could read Hux’s mind well enough to be sure that Hux was the most insensitive being in the galaxy.

Played out like that, it sounded silly, though they always had it in earnest. Today, both of them stayed silent instead.

From the modest section of the city, they walked further, coming into sections with shuttered windows, or small windows further up the facade of buildings. There were durasteel doors with complicated lock systems. The plants that lined the pedestrian walkway were dead or missing, stripes of dirt in their stead. A hot wind blew grit against Hux’s face, and he was glad to be wearing his cap to keep it out of his hair. Broken bits of duracrete and other detritus lined the walks, and Ren cursed as he stepped on all of it. They stopped frequently to apply bacta pads to Ren’s feet, the sidewalk cutting through the old ones.

“I think there were a few pieces of glass you missed,” Hux noted blithely as he picked another shard out of the mess of bandages on Ren’s feet.

“Why don’t you give me your boots, and you can walk on the hot sidewalk.”

“I’m the one that was smart enough to wear shoes when he left this morning,” he answered smugly, slapping another pad against the sole of Ren’s foot. He had the pleasure of watching Ren scowl, and Hux dropped his foot, turning and leading again without another word.

Pedestrians, mostly human, hurried by furtively, not looking at either of them. The speeders that passed by overhead were thin, most older models, many with audible mechanical problems. One trailed black smoke and left a stench of burning oil in its wake.

Ren was sweaty, burned red, and exhausted by the time they reached the one-story motel with the brown, cracked facade and vines choking its exterior entrance. The vines were flowering, and the sickly sweet scent of them radiated off the building in the dying light of the sun, growing more intense and cloying as they approached.

Oddly, Ren didn’t seem angry or affected by his physical shortcomings in the same way he had been disturbed by his failure to use the Force. To Hux, both were troubling. He needed Ren, and they needed to figure out how to make him well again. Physically and otherwise.

They pushed into the lobby through the door, which appeared to be a durasteel rolldown model that was currently propped up with a log of some sort. Hux paused for effect to scowl at it, then took out his datapad and began tapping at it before reached the counter.

A small, red-eyed Chadra Fan was blinking confusedly at him, as if trying to reconcile Hux with the reality of the cracked titles and peeling plaster and paper of the tiny vacant lobby. Hux was struggling with this himself.

The Chadra Fan turned and spoke to Ren instead. “Need a room, friend? Okeemi doesn’t judge.”

Hux gave it a dry look from above his datapad, then feigned interest as he tapped idly through locked files he couldn’t access off the First Order holonet. When Ren didn’t speak, Hux snapped the pad onto the worn wooden counter.

“Yes, my tongue-tied _ward_  and I need a room for the night. Do you have one available?”

The Chadra Fan studied him for a long moment, then spat a stream of something long and purple onto the floor behind the counter. Hux turned away and picked up his datapad again.

“Okeemi has rooms. Thirty creds a night.”

Hux’s skin crawled. Rented rooms didn’t cost thirty creds a night even in First Order space. But they had little choice. He needed to make this transaction as smooth as possible.

“Ren,” he barked, not looking up. “Give him the credits.”

He continued to stare at the screen, hoping to give Ren the benefit of the doubt, and the confidence he needed to use his Force. He watched from the corner of his eye as Ren shuffled closer to the counter, his hand going up, his deep voice steady.

“You have our credits already.”

“Nope. Hand ‘em over.” Both of its hands came out, palm up, over the counter.

“I already gave you thirty credits,” and this time, Hux heard the strain in Ren’s voice sooner, harder. Ren wasn’t going to make it this time either.

“Friend, I don’t know if you think you’re some kinda Jedi or something, but Okeemi thinks they wore shirts and shoes. You’re gonna have to give Okeemi thirty credits.”

Hux looked up as Ren reached across the counter, his big palm and bony fingers enveloping the face of the Chadra Fan. “I gave you the credits already,” he snarled in its face. “You’re giving us our room _now_.”

“Hey, not that,” the Chadra Fan shuffled back on its tall stool, out of Ren’s grip. “You haven’t got the credits, and you haven’t got a Jedi behind you. Hey, Moff Tarkin!” And at that, Hux snapped his pad down again, shocked by his rudeness. The Chadra Fan was giving him an openly curious stare. “You gonna scrape thirty credits off the bottom of your shoe to get a room with Obi-Wan Kenobi here, or are you going to beat it?”

“ _Ren_ ,” Hux ordered tightly, hoping to push him into action, to give him confidence, to _see him do this_. “Do it.”

Ren pushing into another’s mind didn’t often end well. Except for Hux, he lacked finesse doing it, and the other party usually wound up dead. There was no audience to see them here though, and if worse came to worse, he could shoot the alien through the head and they could leave. But it would be better to get a room here, rather than risking another walk with Ren that would end the same way.

“You have our credits already,” Ren all but bellowed, both hands out now.

“Sayin’ it louder doesn’t make it so.” The Chadra Fan shrugged. “But if you don’t wanna pay, you can do something else with Okeemi.” The Chadra Fan looked Ren up and down, and then over at Hux. It inflated some sort of sac at its throat, and began to make a low humming sound.

That was enough for Hux. “Come on.” He grabbed Ren’s wrist again and all but stumbled out of the lobby, drawing Ren around the side of the building.

“Hux, stop, _stop_ ,” Ren said, digging in his heels after a moment. Not wanting him to make a mess out of his feet again, Hux stopped.

“I am _not_  having sex with that alien in exchange for a filthy room,” Hux hissed.

“ _I can’t use the Force_ ,” Ren insisted, his fists balled up at his sides.

“You said you could,” Hux replied, pointing at the lobby. “That was a thirty cred room from an alien that offered to have sex with us, that could _not have been any easier._ ”

Ren’s hands went to his scalp in what Hux recognized as a gesture of frustration, but he had no hair to grip there.

“I know! I couldn’t. I… reached out, and tried to grasp it, and I couldn’t!” Ren’s eyes went to his, wild and on edge. Hux knew he was about to lose him. “You don’t know what it’s like! It’s like if you opened your mouth and forgot to speak. It should come easy. It’s always been easy! But I wake up and-”

“Everything’s different!” Hux nearly shouted over him. “Ren, I know _exactly what this feels like_ , because I am standing here, with you, on Hosnian Prime, and _we do not have thirty credits for stars knows what kind of room is in there_! Ren, this is…” Hux took his cap off, and allowed himself the luxury of sweeping his own fingers through his hair. “Ren, _I need you to do this_.”

“ _I can’t_!” he roared. “I told you, I’ve been watching myself do it in visions for years, but… it’s like flexing a muscle that isn’t there! I know how to do it, and can’t reach for it. It’s the simplest thing, and I can’t-”

Ren turned to the brick wall, and Hux grabbed his wrist before he could start in on it, not wanting to take him back to one of the free clinics to fix his hands.

He held Ren’s fist steadily in his gloved grip. Again, he shouldn’t have been able to, and they both stared at it, furious, slightly winded.

Hux put his hat back on, looking over at Ren. “We need a room. First thing.”

“I need my Force mastery for that.” Ren’s eyes were still wild, and he was not calm.

“No. I can get us a room.”

Hux left him, trusting him to be clear-headed enough to follow him, if only to complain more. He walked to the rear of the building, choosing a room somewhere near the front of the structure. Removing his datapad, he plugged it into the lock and ran the rudimentary slicing program built into it.

He heard the door chime and open. Satisfied with the simple solution, he set the program to “occupied,” then beckoned Ren into the darkness.

“This isn’t one in the back, so it won’t be desirable to anyone trading spice or anything else. And it’s not the first room, which that attendant or someone else is likely to use.”

Hux was proud of himself for thinking of this, not knowing why he didn’t just do this first. The room was dark, with only a tiny smudged front window to admit the setting sunlight, and Hux’s nose wrinkled when the ammonia smell hit him. But it was much cleaner than he thought it would be, and it had a simple bed, sink, and toilet. The toilet was next to the bed, for some reason.

“I don’t _care_  if we need to trade spice, or sleep, or do anything else.” Ren sat down on the bed, punching the mattress with a fist. “Hux, what _good_  am I without being able to do something as simple as that?”

“Ren.” Hux sighed, pulling off his greatcoat and hat and hanging it on a hook near the door, then sitting on the bed next to Ren. He gripped Ren’s chin in his hands, holding him steadily, trying to will him calm.

A nasty thought flashed across his mind - this would work out because Hux always cleaned up his messes, and would clean up this one too. But it wasn’t constructive, and wouldn’t lead to anything but a fight. They needed something else right now.

“You said it was like a muscle you couldn’t flex, correct? You said you could still… what, sense it?” Ren tried to pull away, but Hux kept a gloved grip on his face. “Answer me, Ren,” he ordered sharply.

“Yes,” Ren replied sullenly, still trying to shake off Hux’s hand. “I can sense it, but not use it. It’s like I can’t. Like I know how to, because I’ve been doing it every day of my life, in visions and before that, in Jedi training. But I reach for it, and it slips through my fingers.

Hux leaned forward, his lips close to Ren’s. “Can you show me? Like you did when we met?”

Suddenly, the fury and anger left Ren’s expression, and he exhaled shakily. “Probably.”

Hux leaned back incrementally. “You need to say yes.” Hux hadn’t initiated a kiss in years. He was pleased that it was still incentive enough to calm Ren down.

“Okay, yes, whatever Hux,” and Ren leaned forward, taking his lips. Hux made a noise of protest, but allowed it, deepening the kiss himself. He was glad his gloves were still on as he felt the short hairs on Ren’s scalp bristle as he ran his fingers across the back of his head. It wasn’t like Ren, but Hux could get used to it. His other hand ran along his back, along the bacta bandages healing the scrapes there and the knobby protrusion of his spine, his ribs.

After a moment, Hux felt Ren’s absence inside himself conspicuously. Ren was almost always pressing in on him during sex, but it was most powerful when they kissed, and always had been. He pushed down a sharp spike of panic as something inside him identified Ren as a stranger. That wasn’t true. This was just Ren, and he needed help. So he tried to focus on him, did what he understood of Ren’s art, and looked for him in his mind.

There was a tingle, the briefest flush of warmth on his own lips. It could have been Ren’s body temperature, his skin warmed by the sun. Hux couldn’t say for sure. He hadn’t ever kissed anyone else, but he always assumed it would feel mundane, had always felt sorry for anyone that didn’t have what he and Ren shared.

In fact, he’d always assumed it felt exactly like this. He suddenly felt the scrape of roughness on Ren’s upper lip, the unfamiliar stubble that Ren always kept off his face. It wasn’t like kissing Ren at all, and he very nearly pulled back, making a noise in his throat that Ren took for encouragement, making a noise of his own.

So Hux pushed all the feelings down and deepened the kiss further, thrusting his tongue into Ren’s mouth, then pulling back and sucking Ren’s bottom lip, licking gently into his mouth again. Ren groaned, arching his back under Hux’s touch.

And Hux felt Ren then, just the briefest ghost of a touch in his mind. But he was certain. It was Ren, unsure, overwhelmed, aroused. The same as he always was when he kissed Hux. That had never changed.

Hux pulled back, opening his eyes slightly. “There. I felt that.”

Ren left his eyes closed longer, panting slightly, his hands clenched in his lap. When he didn’t say anything, Hux tried harder, obviously annoyed.

“You used the Force, Ren. Correct?”

“Yes.” His eyes snapped open. “That was it. I did it.”

“Could you do it again?”

Ren turned red, embarrassed by their physical relationship for the first time in years, and looked away. “I’d… have to practice some more first.”

Hux rolled his eyes, searching the room. “You don’t have to do it in bed.”

“It’s easier in bed.”

Hux ignored him until he found a suitable exercise, pointing to the hook by the door. “There. Put my hat on my head.”

Hux closed his eyes to make Ren less self-conscious, but he sat with his thigh brushing Ren’s, his arms crossed.

He stayed that way for several minutes, letting Ren have his time. When he cracked his eye, he saw Ren’s face bunched in concentration, his palm out to the door. He looked over, and the hat was on the ground. The ill feeling twisted in his gut again, and he felt his skin grow cold. He stood up abruptly and slammed the hat back on the hook.

“That’s enough for now, you have to grow back into it.” Even as he said it, he knew the words sounded bitter, that neither of them believed it. He sat back down on the bed next to Ren, trying to change the subject for now.

“So let me make sure I understand what happened. You know everything about what we did in the First Order.”

“Yes.”

Hux narrowed his eyes. “You’ve met Phasma. And the other captain?”

“Cardinal. Deserter.” Ren’s face darkened at the memory, and Hux huffed a sharp breath of agreement. That had been a cruel betrayal. As much as Ren hated betrayal, Hux had been nearly apoplectic when Cardinal had fled.

“The ships that house the Trooper and Officer Academies?”

“The _Absolution_  and the _Equity_.”

“When did Snoke finish the _Supremacy_?”

“About five years ago. 31 ABY.”

“How many TIEs in our _Resurgent_ -class Star Destroyers?”

“Four hundred.”

“Name some of the planets you pacified?”

Ren was obviously growing more annoyed. “Gerralt. Tracon. Epi-Kolla. That last one was a full-on war. The first unit got mired, and I commed for TIE coverage, but the capital city was shielded, and resisted aerial bombardment from all ships and the turbolasers aboard the Dreadnought _Hyannis_. They tried to hold us hostage, but you sent several more units of ground troops in, and called the _Subjugator_  for backup. It took us nearly two weeks to eliminate all the insurgents. I had to hunt all the cells down myself, and we set up the interdictor _Indra_  in the planet’s airspace to keep the rebels from fleeing. You hated how long and complicated it was. You blamed me extensively for it.”

Hux sighed. That was one of the planets he had checked for before he left to find Ren, because Ren was always most proud of taking that one. It was not even mapped by the First Order fleet.

“And you… dreamed all this?”

“Yes.” Ren’s expression grew more intense. “It was a vision. My body was in stasis when I had them, and I knew nothing of the physical world. It _was_  my life.” He clenched his fists in his lap, and hung his head. “More real than this one. I wanted…” He looked back at Hux. “I always wanted to go back to it, when I woke up. I wanted you to be real, and find me.”

“I’m real.” Hux turned away from him, looking out the dim window at the late afternoon sunlight, the sun he had sucked into the Starkiller mechanism just before it had been destroyed, as they were trying to fire on the rebel base. He turned back to Ren. “It’s this life that isn’t.”

He allowed himself the luxury of pacing, a hand going through his hair again. “I woke up, and the First Order…” he looked over at Ren, then away, agitated. “It’s a quarter of the former strength, Ren. We have less than half a dozen destroyers, next to no recruitment, only a tiny handful of territory planets. We have no credits, no resources.” He stopped, and looked at Ren. “I’m still a general, but we have no real power. At the rate of growth, we’d take at least two lifetimes before we’d catch up to what you and I know.” He ran his gloved fingers through his hair again, then walked to the window, looking out at the ghosts. “It stopped growing after you didn’t come. I checked my memories against the recorded history. They stop matching with this reality just after the date you should have joined. Everything recorded before your arrival, all the maneuvers and diplomatic activity and ship construction, all of it was the same. But without you, after that, nothing was the same.”

He hated admitting it out loud. But he saw the pattern. The first missions that he and Ren had completed together, Ren rushing off with nothing but his lightsaber, his fury, and a chip on his shoulder, trying to prove that he needed to do this. Hux had always tried to hold him back, but Ren had somehow survived every time. In this version of reality, those engagements had lasted months, had been years apart, had often been pyrrhic victories. Ren hadn't been there.

He turned back to Ren when he didn’t respond, waving a hand. “I woke up from my life to… something else, just as you wake from your visions, or whatever they are, your visions of being Kylo Ren.” He stopped himself and swallowed, and he saw Ren’s expression darken, meaning that he understood exactly what Hux was implying. “You wake up like this, trapped in a hospital in Republic City, in a body that isn’t physically or mentally capable of doing anything.” Hux slammed a gloved fist in the wall. “Yes. I know exactly what that feels like, because I woke up like that five days ago. You woke up physically weak and without access to your Force powers. I woke up without an army.”

 _Without you_.

The weakened First Order was the equivalent. That army was his. It was like waking up unexpectedly with an amputated limb. Even Hosnian Prime still existed.

And he needed Kylo Ren to do all of it.

 _Our lives are bound_.

“I do know. All of it. So don’t get angry and tell me… you can’t do something, or that I abandoned you, or that I don’t know what you’re going through. I do.”

“I… you didn’t abandon me.” It was an unsure statement, and Hux turned, furious, snapping his reply at his own reflection in the window.

“I know I didn’t.” He turned back around, challenging Ren to make an issue of it.

He was studying Hux with an expression that meant he was trying to parse whether Hux was manipulating him or telling the truth. Sometimes Hux couldn’t tell, either. “So the First Order… isn’t the one I know.”

Hux sighed, leaning his fist against the wall, looking out the window again. The smudged glass didn't offer much of a view, just the broken neighborhood surrounding the hotel. There were neither speeders nor pedestrian traffic, the area was desolate and deserted in the dying light of the afternoon. Hux huffed, watching his breath fog briefly on the dirty glass.

“It’s there, Ren. As I said.” _But not really_. The bad feeling in the pit of his stomach solidified into a certainty, one he didn’t want to face right now. He looked over at Ren instead.

His words seemed to have the opposite effect on Ren. “Well, we can go back, then.” His eyes brightened, and he laid back on the bed, hands behind his head, bare feet dangling over the edge. “I guess Snoke will be able to fix me.”

The corners of Hux’s mouth pulled down. Ren was obviously furious about his absent power, and would never willingly rush off to train with Snoke. His confidence was an easy lie, one Hux didn’t see a need to challenge.

But. The thought of giving this version of Ben Solo to Snoke made Hux’s skin crawl, his heart clench. That Ren would bring that up, just when Hux was trying to avoid-

Ren was oblivious to Hux’s mounting horror. He wanted to share it with Ren, to make him see it.

But Ren had thought Hux would just… leave him here, to rot in a hospital by himself.

Hux forced himself to stop fidgeting, went over and sat on the edge of the bed next to Ren. “I suppose he could, if anyone can,” he answered lightly. It was his own lie. He’d rather give Ren to Luke Skywalker, which said something. The equivalent would be Ren turning Hux over to Brendol, for his own good.

In a choice between Brendol’s tenderness and Snoke’s, however, Hux knew which he’d choose. If he hadn’t already killed him.

Hux laid back next to Ren, staring up at the ceiling himself.

“What’s real, Ren?”

He felt Ren’s head shift on the bed next to him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean. My memories. That’s what’s real to me. But those experiences seem to be… unique to me. They aren’t real to anyone else.”

“They’re real to me. They happened.”

“You call them visions.”

“They’re more real to me than this.” He held up a hand and made a fist. Hux watched the skin stretch and pale around his knuckles.

“But that’s what we’re dealing with now. _This_. This is reality. Not the other.”

Ren studied his fist in the air another moment, then turned and scrutinized Hux.

“We just move on.” Ren frowned. “Isn’t that what you normally say? ‘Stop dwelling on the past. Nothing can be done but change.’ And then you tell me what to do, and we do it. Why can’t we just do that now?”

Hux rolled over on his side, away from Ren. There wasn’t any way to describe the horror he felt when looking at him, that Kylo Ren had been allowed to lay comatose for fourteen years. That all the power and potential in Ben Solo, all of it had withered, everything from his strength to his voice. All of it had been here, waiting for Hux. Ren hadn’t moved forward without him, and Hux hadn’t come.

“Hux.” He felt one of Ren’s thin hands on his shoulder. He didn’t bother rolling back.

“Can we practice more now? Just… before we get to Snoke?”

Hux rolled back over and glared at Ren. Ren’s cheeks colored, but he kept the same serious expression on his face.

“Practice using the Force, I mean.”

“Do you think I’m stupid?”

Ren frowned. “You’d say no if I asked to kiss you. Or have sex.”

“Do you really think I’m in the mood now?”

“ _Hux_ ,” he insisted, in the wheedling, petty way he had that got under Hux’s skin, but was at least very authentically Ren. Ren rolled onto his back. “It worked before. It's the only good thing that’s happened. Why can’t we just do it again?”

“Because I know where you think that will go, and it isn’t to a better version of the First Order. You’re hoping my pants will wind up on the floor, and your dick will be in my ass. Don’t be so _crass_.”

Ren glowered at the ceiling, and Hux studied his body, trying to muster the energy to do what Ren was suggesting, loathe as he was to admit that Ren was right. It was the only good thing that had happened.

He propped himself over Ren, one hand on either side of his reduced chest, which Hux lingered over a moment with regret.

“Are you a virgin?”

Ren’s eyes widened. “How many times have you fucked me?”

Hux kept his face neutral. “In the sense we were just discussing, never. Are you thirty-four years old, and a virgin?”

Ren’s face hardened. “Not in the ways that count.  And wouldn't that make you a virgin, too?”

"What?  No.  I woke up a week ago.  You've been here the whole time."

Ren made a face.  "You don't think you've been here the whole time?"

"No.  My body's the same."

Ren smirked.  "The same body that's been in the First Order this whole time?"

Hux considered this a moment, and his stomach clenched violently at a memory of Snoke - 

 _My sources said you were celibate. Never used sex even for your petty manipulations_.

He couldn't stop the repulsion from flickering across his face, and Ren's expression brightened, triumphant.

"You _are_."

Hux took the thought to its logical conclusion.  His body must have been here the whole time, too, because everyone at the Order knew who he was.  He'd somehow been a different person, living a different life, one where he'd left Ren on Hosnian Prime.  Perhaps he had taken a lover.  That was somehow more repulsive than Snoke's commentary on his sex life, though Snoke's comments themselves seemed to suggest that this was unlikely.

He dismissed this.  He didn't want to think about it.

"No.  I'm not.  But I'm asking about you, Ren."

Hux made a motion that he’d done a thousand times before, brushing Ren’s forehead and tucking his hair behind his ear. There was no hair there now, but the effect was the same - Ren’s pupils dilated, and he shivered. Hux leaned in closer, keeping his face neutral.

“Say it, Ren.”

Ren’s eyes searched his sullenly for a moment, and he chewed his lower lip. Hux wanted to hear it, was willing to cocktease Ren for quite some time until he said it. But then Ren got a particular look in his eyes, and a shit-eating grin, and Hux scowled.

“Say what, Hux? What do you want to hear?”

“That you’re a virgin,” Hux said thinly.

“Oh, you mean you want to hear that yours is the first cock I sucked? You want to hear how _wonderful_  and _singular_  the experience of having you touch me for the first time was? Do you want a trip down memory lane, to hear how great you were? To share _feelings_?”

“I.. No. That isn’t what I meant.”

“No?” Ren’s expression grew more predatory, and something higher up in Hux’s chest twisted, something better than the sickness, but an ache all the same. “You were looking for a week? What did you think would happen if you didn’t find me?” Ren’s hand came up, and Hux exhaled as he tucked a loose lock of Hux’s hair behind his ear.

“I knew I would,” Hux said, with more confidence than he felt. He swallowed.

“Did you think about what you’d say if you found me? That you missed me? That you loved me?”

“I didn’t… mean that. I just wanted to know if you’d- if there was anyone who'd-” Hux closed his mouth, and cursed himself as he felt his face flush. Ren’s eyes widened, and his voice grew quiet as he understood.

“You wanted to know if I slept with anyone else. No. I wouldn’t.”

Hux had been worried for a moment that this version of Ren had, somehow, had other lovers. The thought sent a pang of jealousy through him that was almost physically painful.

Not wanting to linger, something in him still wanting to flee from any of this, the ache in his chest twisting, he pushed everything down.

And he tried to stop himself. But it was too automatic. And it was with a feeling of horror that he felt his lips twist up, a hand come out to stroke Ren’s cheek.

“Well. Then you’re a virgin. Just say so.”

It was cruel, and he should have said something else, had wanted to say something else. Had told himself he would, if given a chance. But he'd simply done what he'd always done. Ren frowned, and Hux's throat went tight as he sat back on Ren’s bony thighs.

He shook his head again, letting the moment pass, pleading with Ren with his gaze to forgive him. Not able to hold Ren's dark stare, he began to examine Ren’s body, running his gloved hands over his pale, unscarred chest, his fingers lingering in spots where the old wounds had been. He remembered how Ren had gotten all of them.

He let out a shaky sigh, and said the only thing he knew, the kind of cruel banter that made things easy between them. “So you haven’t had another lover in all these years. I should have known. They let you waste away in a hospital, your potential completely wasted. Look at you.” He drug his thumbs over Ren’s nipples, which weren’t particularly sensitive, but had previously been part of one of the most magnificent chests Hux had ever seen, and he had spent more time than he’d liked to admit sucking on them. He drug his hand lower, down the trail of hair leading to Ren’s navel, then to the waist of his pants. He raised his eyes back to Ren’s, which had darkened more perceptibly.

“Untouched, at your age. Dreaming about me all this time. Playing coy, and trying to get me to touch you by telling me it’s ‘Jedi Training.’ That didn’t even work when we were younger, Ren.” Hux pulled at Ren's waistband with a gloved thumb, down past Ren’s growing erection. He took his cock in his left hand, dragging his gloved fingers gently along its length.  “What did you have in mind?”

Ren propped himself up on his elbows, watching Hux touch him. His eyes went to Hux’s.

“Take off the gloves.”

It was such a simple request that Hux almost did, the hand resting against Ren’s side twitching to comply, aching now to touch him skin to skin. There was much about the body in front of him that wasn’t Ren, not physically, but Hux still felt the same attraction, the same ridiculous ache, the _wanting_  that had never really stopped.

But he decided not to remove the gloves, running a thumb up the underside of Ren’s cock. It was fully hard now, leaking slightly from the tip. Ren’s brows drew together. It normally took much more than this to get Ren aroused, his passion coming and going like a storm, Hux usually submitting to his whims amicably.

In fact, there was something off about this whole encounter. Perhaps it was Republic City, or that they were planetside at all. It may have been that Ren was generally the one that pushed Hux into the bed, wanted, demanded, Hux submitting coyly. It wasn’t any of that, but whatever this was, it was still powerful. Ren was still in Hux’s bed again, where he belonged.

Hux thumbed the drops of precome beading at the tip of Ren's cock, swirling the fluid around the head and watching the low afternoon light from the window glisten in the wetness of it.

Ren sat up straighter, his dark gaze catching on Hux’s again, his voice low. Not a plea, a demand. “Take the gloves off.”

Hux moved his palm onto Ren’s chest, shoving Ren back down into the mattress and pinning him there with all his weight. He smirked.

“ _Make me_.”

Ren’s hand went up, and Hux tensed, anticipating being thrown back into the mattress, Ren’s rough hands tearing at his uniform, the Force pinning him in place. This was a routine, too, that Hux could defy Ren, goad him into something more exciting, something rougher and tinged with anger, sure to last longer and exhaust both of them. He felt Ren tense underneath him, his body coiling for the strike. Arousal pooled in Hux’s belly now, dispelling the ill feeling he’d had since laying eyes on Ren.

But nothing happened.

Hux’s hand stilled on Ren’s cock, and they both looked at Ren’s outstretched hand, then into each other’s eyes. Abruptly, Ren sat up, and Hux pushed him back into the mattress.

“I said _make me_ ,” Hux hissed, bearing his teeth, tightening his grip on Ren’s cock and twisting. “Not a single stitch of my clothing comes off unless you remove it by force, Ren. Physical or otherwise.”

Ren’s face folded in fury and his cock jumped in Hux’s grip. He looked down and saw the trail of precome dribbling from the head, leaking down over his fine gloves, and he twisted his hold again, slicking his cock further.

Ren shoved hard with both hands at Hux’s shoulders, and Hux rocked back, Ren grabbing his wrist as his cock slipped out of Hux’s hand. Hux yanked his hand back easily, and Ren lunged forward, grabbing at Hux’s uniform collar.

Hux, growing angrier and more aroused, shoved Ren back into the mattress. Ren tried twisting out from under Hux, bucking his weight off and leaning to the side, then bringing his elbow into Hux’s midsection.

It was unexpected, and it knocked the wind out of Hux, enough to double him and let Ren roll away. He collapsed facedown on the mattress, and he felt Ren crawl behind him, yanking one of his legs up.

“Fuck you, I can still-” he was pulling at one of Hux’s boots in an attempt to remove it. Hux shifted to brace himself on his elbows and knees, looking underneath himself, then yanked his foot back and returned the blow to Ren’s midsection He heard a high noise from Ren as he fell backwards, clutching his middle.

Hux slid backwards, straddling Ren’s chest and sitting on his stomach. He yanked Ren’s pants all the way off, discarding them. All the money in the New Republic, and Ren was wandering around wearing the cheapest pair of pants he could find. Ren was still hard, cock twitching, leaking so much that fluid had gathered in his unkempt pubic hair.

Hux looked behind him, where Ren was clearly furious, though currently contenting himself with resting his hands on Hux’s ass.

“Too bad. I would have enjoyed that,” Hux lamented. He twisted Ren’s cock once again in his gloved grip, feeling it throb through the material. Ren's skin was hot and slick, and he spared himself a moment of regret for how he was about to ruin his nice gloves. He had another pair on the ship, along with a spare uniform, so he only chastised himself briefly before making the final decision to indulge.

He slid a gloved finger further back, teasing Ren’s entrance. He heard Ren moan beneath him, felt his voice vibrate between his own thighs. Uncharacteristically, Ren remained silent as he wiggled the tip of his finger just into the tight hole. Normally, he kept up a steady stream of dirty talk.

He paused. It was Ren, and it was just sex, though there was something about this that was off-putting. They’d never physically fought in bed before, Ren simply used the Force to overpower him, and Hux struggled, allowing it. He’d enjoyed having the tables turned, but it wasn’t the same, watching Ren struggle below him, because Ren was not _letting_  him win.

It was also true that he missed the sensation of Ren - whenever they were together, he could feel Ren, feel every emotion that passed through him. Every passing whim - rage, arousal, confusion, but most of all, the _attention_  Ren paid him - it was gone, along with Ren’s Force power.

Much like the kiss, this was too much like fucking a stranger, and Hux’s arousal vanished with another ill twist of his stomach. His hand slowed and stopped briefly, and he felt himself wilting at the thought of this distinctive _absence_.

But he would have this, this thing that had been between them. He’d searched for Ren, and here he was, below him, and they would have sex. He was no stranger. He was still Kylo Ren, and he still wanted Hux.

Hux glanced around the room, then hissed. They had no lubrication, and he did not want to use any that the room might provide.

He turned to look over his shoulder. “I can’t fuck you. There’s no lube.”

Both of Ren’s hands were braced in the bedspread, his face red, eyes half closed, his expression a surprising look of concentration.

“Then _take the kriffing gloves off_  and touch me,” Ren grit out through bared teeth.

Hux raised his eyebrows. “No, I don’t think I will. I told you to take them off yourself, and you did not.” He considered Ren’s erection again, stroking it and admiring the way Ren’s cock was making a mess of his glove. Ren’s knees came up, lifting up his hips slightly, and Hux with him. Hux’s other hand went to his own tunic, idly playing with the belt buckle, then undoing it decisively, unzipping the front and opening his pants, freeing his own half-hard cock and giving it a couple perfunctory strokes.

He generally hated doing this, as his own cock was small compared to Ren’s, but his mind was shying away from their usual sex routines, as none of that was working. Trying something different seemed like the least dangerous course of action. And this was good, because this cock was still ridiculous, still indisputably Ren’s.

He moved himself forward, spreading his thighs and pulling their cocks together.

“This will be all the touch of my skin you’ll get, Ren.”

He wrapped his hand around both, gentle with his own erection, shifting his grip and arching his hips into his own fist. He pressed a thumb into Ren’s leaking slit, and was surprised when Ren’s stomach tightened below his ass and he came, suddenly and copiously.

Hux’s lips parted in surprise, and he looked at the mess of come running down over his half-hard cock. He immediately let go of both, hoisting his knee back over Ren and facing him angrily.

Ren’s face was red, his eyes closed, and he was breathing hard. His fists were still in the bedsheets, and he appeared as always after an orgasm, slightly angry, brows together, looking as if he needed to collect himself.

“What the fuck was that, Ren?” Hux asked. “You didn’t even last long enough for me to get hard!”

Ren was silent for a few moments, putting a hand to his face and making a moaning noise. He cracked an eye and glared at Hux.

“You’re the one that called me an untouched virgin.”

“I didn’t think it was true!” Hux’s voice was high, his mind screaming a denial of what was occurring. Ren hadn’t finished, he hadn’t actually had an orgasm, because Hux would have _felt_  it, he always did, it always squeezed his own out-

Except not this Ren. This Ren was different.

This Ren was a stranger.

He was horrified again, the sick feeling washing from his stomach up his throat, choking him. He tucked his cock back into his pants, sitting on the edge of the bed and resting his face in his hands, his back to Kylo Ren. The roaring through his thoughts had started again, and he let out a long, shaky breath, feeling something in his own mind break, feeling something slip out of his grasp, right through his fingers.

It was his confidence.

It was all he’d had most of his life. Self-assurance, complete faith that his actions were right and correct. He’d seen as a child how lack of direction and confidence could kill fellow cadets, how they would lay down and die when they didn’t have a reason to get back up. For Hux, he was absolutely certain that surviving would be worth it, that he could grow and thrive if he lived and learned how. From there, it grew into a certainty that he was the best cadet. Confidence that any and all changes he made to the training programs were optimal.

It was how he’d been foolish enough to fly across the galaxy to meet Ren that first time. Ben Solo had come to the First Order, and Ben Solo had been his. He’d been right about all of it. Kylo Ren had thrived. All the plans and strategies Hux had implemented, all the impossible things, he’d used Kylo Ren to make them work. It had been Kylo Ren’s influence with Snoke that had gotten him assigned to Starkiller, the one to ultimately reveal the First Order to the galaxy. Kylo Ren had always listened to his problems, and Kylo Ren had always eliminated Hux’s competition. Hux had spent nights putting Kylo Ren back together after training sessions, missions that had gone badly, after Starkiller-

 _Our lives are bound_.

When he’d woken up, and his life’s work had been reduced to a shadow of its former self, he knew all he had to do was find Kylo Ren, and everything would make sense. Kylo Ren could fix it.

And he’d sought him out. But he hadn’t succeeded this time.

Hux could do everything he did because Kylo Ren was beside him. Kylo Ren was his confidence, his way forward.

But this was not Kylo Ren.

He had all of Kylo Ren’s memories, and looked like the tortured, starved ghost of the man that Hux had spent nearly half his life with. But Hux could not place his confidence in him.

He laid back on the mattress next to Ren, his thoughts blank. Ren’s arm came out, pulling him closer, except Ren was the one whose much lighter and naked frame slid across the sheets. Ren grunted in annoyance, but tucked his face into Hux’s neck, his hand moving gently over Hux’s chest.

“I wish you would take the uniform off,” he grumbled. “I want to feel you.”

Hux exhaled. “I told you my terms.”

He received only a grunt of annoyance. This only further fed Hux’s panic - Ren always held him after sex, and Hux had long ago given up on complaining that it was too hot. It was a genuinely Ren-like desire, but. Ren would have simply taken his uniform off. He wouldn’t have asked.

Hux could have curled into Ren’s arm, could have turned on his side and let Ren move his other arm around. But he didn’t. He laid on his back, in full uniform, staring at the ceiling as Ren fell asleep next to him.

They laid in silence long enough for the sun to completely set in Republic City, throwing the room into a darkness that was lit only by the excessive outdoor lighting, the poorly calibrated humming audible inside the room. He heard Ren’s breath fall into the steady rhythm of sleep, heard the noises he made, the strangled gasps and whimpers. Hux turned to look at him, but then tensed. Ren reacted badly if he woke up to Hux watching him sleep. He shook Ren awake.

Ren’s eyes blinked open rapidly, annoyed at first, then confused. Then a slow smile spread across his face, the kind of genuine joy Hux hadn’t seen in years.  The ache in his chest responded, though he wished it wouldn't.  It wouldn't serve them now.

“ _Hux_.”

When Hux said nothing, Ren propped himself up on his elbows to look at him. 

“When are we going back?”

They couldn’t go back. Snoke would take away this Ben Solo, and he’d nearly broken the healthier, younger version of him. He didn’t want that, didn’t want to be left with the ruins of the First Order and no confidence, no hope of Kylo Ren making everything go just as he’d planned. It hurt, and he didn’t know what to do with the information. He couldn’t move forward.

He turned away, saying something else, not even able to admit this to Ren.

“I don’t want to go back, Ren. What I built with the First Order, it’s my life’s work. I don’t want to wait until I’m sixty to move forward again.”

He heard Ren shift in the darkness, sit up. “But we know how to do it this time. Can’t we just make it all go faster? I remember how to take all those planets. It’ll be simple.”

 _It won’t_ , Hux thought. _Not with you like this_.

“No. All those resources, all those credits, it takes time. I can’t just tell the scientists to develop weapons twenty years more advanced than what they have now. I don’t know enough about them to make them work. I can’t rebuild Starkiller, even if I could get someone to take the idea seriously.”

“You don’t have to have someone take it seriously,” Ren reassured him. “I’ll get my strength back, and they’ll believe anything you tell them.”

Hux curled in on himself and put his face back in his hands, feeling the hard crust of Ren’s come dried to the leather of his gloves.

“Ren, we don’t even have enough credits to get home.”

Ren made a dismissive noise. “I can just withdraw credits from my account.”

Hux sat up, some of his despair receding. “What are you talking about?”

Ren rolled his eyes, laying back on the bed and sounding annoyed, using his irritating sing-song voice. “I’m authorized to use the family account. And my family saved the galaxy. We can probably fund a private war, if not my father’s failing businesses.”

Hux leaned forward, the buzzing emptiness in his head growing louder, developing into a throbbing pain. “That was a solution the whole time?”

“Yeah, but I figure my family’s probably looking for me. Luke will notice I’m gone in another day or so, if he hasn’t already. They’ll tell him when I left when he asks. If I use the money, it’ll be a matter of time before he find us.”

Hux exhaled. “Especially if we withdraw enough for fuel to get us back across the galaxy.” He ran a hand through his hair, forgetting again that it was covered in Ren’s come. “I met with your mother, to ask her where you were when I couldn’t find any trace of you.”

Ren’s posture stiffened. “What was that like?”

Hux looked over at him. He knew how Ren felt about discussing his family, and he didn’t want to argue with him about it. “She didn’t like me.”

Far from being a sore subject, Ren actually smirked. “And you didn’t even blow up the New Republic this time.” He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. At least Ren seemed pleased by that terrible sex. Ren exhaled, continuing his musings.

“She probably doesn’t like you anyway. I talked about you. Excessively.”

Hux’s eyes widened. “Yes… she did seem to recognize me, after a moment. I thought it was just that I brought you up. She was furious after that.”

Ren barked out a laugh, another rare occurrence. He rolled over onto his side, showing the smooth, unscarred skin of his back to Hux again. “If you asked her about me, she’ll probably know I’m with you. She might impound your ship, or send out an alert to deny your exit from Hosnian Prime’s orbit.”

“Ren, am I going to be arrested for kidnapping a thirty-four-year-old man?”

Hux saw the muscles in his back tense, and decided not to push the issue. He sighed, rubbing his temples and looking out the window, then pulling out his datapad to check the time. He cursed Ren’s family, then let himself register part of what Ren had said earlier.

“It’s your uncle that will notice you’re gone? Not your mother?”

Ren curled further back in on himself. “I don’t remember the last time I saw my mother. Not since I was hospitalized. Luke comes at least once a week. Most of the time it’s more. I’m usually not awake.”

Hux tried to reconcile this with what he knew of Luke Skywalker, the man who had cruelly betrayed his nephew. Ren had chosen Luke over Hux, only to have Luke almost literally stab him in the back as he slept. The thought of it still made Hux’s skin crawl. Not even Brendol had done that.

“But he didn’t try to kill you this time.”

“It doesn’t matter. I know he would. It’s enough.”

Hux let the angry words sit between them, not wanting to rile Ren any further. In the silence, Ren rolled over, the artificial light from the small window casting his pale skin a sickly green-yellow color.

“If you don’t want to go back to the Order, why don’t we go back to Ventu instead?”

Hux closed his eyes, growing impatient with Ren’s failure to grasp how truly poorly they were doing. The throbbing pain in his head increased. “Why would we go back there? In all the most forsaken corners of the galaxy, why would we chose one where we went on some inane, time-wasting mission-”

“Because that’s what made this all change.”

Hux opened his eyes, and he saw the intense, slightly mad stare that seemed to make the impostor in front of him wholly Kylo Ren.

“Do you remember getting to the artifacts? What happened when we got to the bottom of the cave?”

Hux suppressed a shiver. “I don’t know.”

Ren sat up, shaking his head. “I woke up before we got to the bottom. How did it happen for you, if you were really there?”

“I…” Hux remembered fighting on the stairway on the way down, he remembered the cloying scent of flowers. His gaze drifted away, and then back to Ren’s. “You really don’t know, or remember, what happened?”

Ren shook his head slowly, holding Hux’s gaze.

“We need to go back.”

Hux’s stomach twisted, and he fought with himself not to be sick.

 _Our lives are bound_.

Hux did not want to return to the planet. He stood, looking out the tiny window again to the empty, weed-choked lot that was now lit with garish overhead fluorescents for no discernible reason, other than a compulsive need to waste resources. He heard Ren shuffling behind him, likely pulling his pants back on.

_Our lives are bound._

Hux did not want to return to the planet.

But he thought of Kylo Ren, behind him, and he thought of the certain death that would await him back at the First Order.

 _Our lives are bound_.

He thought about continuing this diminished version of the First Order without Kylo Ren. He considered the execution he would have to order when he got back, and he thought of the petty power struggles he’d need to play out with Snoke. He thought of the minuscule amount of ground he would gain back, year by year, replaying his entire life over again, except in slow motion.

And without Ren.

 _Our lives are bound_.

What would he do with Ren if he couldn’t take him back to the Order? Leave him here?

He stepped jerkily to the door, grabbing his greatcoat and hat, not looking at Ren.

“Fine. We’re stealing gas money from your family.”

 

* * *

 

He took the credit chip from Ren when they got to the spaceport, handing it to the attendant and giving a curt order to refuel the ship. He made a show of gesturing sharply to Ren, feigning impatience, then boarded, not bothering to see if Ren had followed.

As soon as he was aboard, he frantically stripped out of his uniform and into his flight suit. Ren collapsed onto a bench, tired and pale, his cheeks and the bridge of his nose burned.

They had walked to a nearby open-air evening market, packed shoulder to shoulder with beings browsing the booths. It was here that he gave Ren the credit chip and had him transfer enough to fuel his ship for a jump along an unmapped route into Wild Space. Starting from when the funds had been withdrawn, Hux had begun looking over his shoulder, paranoid that they’d be spotted. He knew his uniform was distinctive in Republic City, but he hoped he dressed and carried himself with enough authority that he would not be stopped unless a description of himself really had circulated. The access point was public enough and crowded enough that he hoped they wouldn’t be tracked to or through the market.

He’d suspected Ben Solo’s isolation had helped to remove his memory from the public consciousness - that, and his haggard, malnourished body. The only thing Hux had bothered with in the market was buying Ren boots and a light brown poncho, loose and gauzy and billowing. It was now fully dark, but Ren was less conspicuous with clothes on, and Hux hoped the boots would save his feet, which they were running out of bacta to treat.

The walk to the shopping center had once again proved nearly too much for Ren, and Hux had hired a transport to take them back to the spaceport, searching the news feeds on his datapad in near-paranoia, expecting a bulletin about the missing Ben Solo any moment.

As he zipped up the front of the flight suit, Ren seemed to catch his breath, sitting up and watching Hux dress with interest, though he said nothing.

“You know we’re going to get away, right?”

A small part of Hux knew Ren’s confidence was misplaced, but he needed it badly right now, with his own fled and so many things that could go wrong. He needed Ren sure that this trip to Ventu would work, because there was very much nothing else for them.

“It takes nearly thirty minutes to finish fueling. That’s plenty of time for some member of your family to notice a hundred thousand credits missing.”

Ren’s face folded into a petulant scowl. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve been gone for a long time anyway.”

“Not to them.” Hux didn’t want to have this conversation right now, didn’t really care to be stealing either money or a son from the Skywalkers, which Ren still was, at this moment. As soon as his flight suit was on, he did one more holonet check, then sat down at the console, beginning to enter the coordinates to Ventu into the navcomputer. Ren stood and watched him do it.

“You remember the coordinates exactly?”

“Yes,” Hux answered distractedly. “I approved them. What a stupid question.”

“It’s not like I remember long strings of coordinates.”

“I know you don’t. You know very little about the day-to-day routine of a Star Destroyer, despite commanding one for almost a decade.”

Ren leaned closer. “Did you just admit that I had command?”

“No. Ren, shut up,” Hux snapped, slapping the console with his other palm and turning to glare. “I’m having to override a lot of safety parameters, because the navcomputer doesn’t know the hyperlane we’re using. I need to concentrate.”

“You can do the math for this, too?”

“ _Ren_ ,” Hux grit out. “No, that’s why I have a navcomputer. _Be silent_.”

Ren looked at the console, and to Hux’s absolute fury, sat in the copilot’s seat.

“Let me program the jump. I can do it safer.”

“ _Ren_. You don’t even know the coordinates.”

“Most people don’t memorize long strings of coordinates, Hux. I’ve done this more than you.”

“ _Ren_ ,” he snapped, nearly in frustrated tears, his hand paused in the calculations. “I made it here. I’m not going to sacrifice our safety because you _dreamed_  about doing this.” He turned back, forcing himself to do the calculations more slowly. This really was dangerous. As the navcomputer continued to insist.

“Well, you’ll at least let me fly.”

“No.”

Ren grunted, more surprised than Hux would have thought. He didn’t get up and leave, and the navcomputer calculations were delicate. Hux didn’t trust himself to do this angry, so he continued with other pre-flight checks.

“You… don’t pilot, Hux. How did you even get here?”

Hux didn’t want to admit it had been almost entirely autopilot. “I managed, didn’t I?”

“Just let me take off, you know I’m better-”

“No.” Hux turned to him, his face burning. It really was irrational, because Ren did do all the piloting for Hux when they left the ship together.

But this wasn’t Kylo Ren, and Hux doubted he’d ever piloted a ship in his life. He didn’t want this to be a learning exercise, he wanted to get away from Hosnian Prime.

“It’s my ship, and I’m piloting it.”

“Why are you-”

“ _Ren_.”

They stared at each other for several more moments. Ren was furious, on the verge of a rage. He obviously wanted to do this, _needed_  to do this, probably wanted to prove that he could still do everything.

Hux didn’t want this to be a team-building exercise.

“Leave me, Ren. I’ll do it.”

To his surprise, Ren did. He squeezed through the narrow passage to the small berth, and he heard a loud noise. Hux spared a thought to wonder if Ren had hurt himself while having a tantrum, then he switched back to the navcomputer.

It took several minutes for Hux to override the safety and program in the proper coordinates for the hyperlane. He remembered it, as they had used it quite often to navigate that area of Wild Space. They’d transported supplies, ships, Troopers, and almost the entire fleet through it almost daily. Still, there was something about overriding the safeties that made Hux uneasy. What if something was different now?

It wouldn’t be. This wasn’t the past. This was a hyperlane he’d used eight days ago. It was the same, under the same conditions. It was fine.

The coordinates were approximate. He was certain up to a point where the planet was, but didn't want them to actually jump into the center of it, killing them. He could get them in the vicinity, and they'd find it from there.

But there was also a chance that he was off, and they’d wind up colliding with an asteroid. His hand shook as he entered the final override and confirmed.

It was better than the alternative.

Or was it?

Did he really believe that this would work?

It had to. When Ren said it, it had sounded right to Hux, _felt_  right. He had sought Ren out for an answer, and Ren had given it. He felt a twinge, the burning certainty. The pain in his stomach and head receded. He exhaled, feeling his confidence returning.

He watched the fuel gauge rise. Hux had been horrified to learn how costly fuel was in Republic space. The First Order got it from sources that the Republic clearly lacked. He watched the fuel calculation for the jump war with the physical amount going into the ship, which would be cut off when they ran out of credits. It would be a close thing. They could get to the planet, but they likely couldn’t leave the system if they were wrong.

But what if they were right, and… what, Ren turned back into himself? They still had to leave the system. What was the ideal situation? That he’d wake up in bed and none of this would have happened?

He pounded his bare fist into the console. It didn’t matter. They were right, and they just had to prove it on Ventu.

As the credits ran out and the fuel stopped, the calculation finished, and they had just enough. Hux sighed, giving the order to disengage and request authorization to leave the atmosphere. He made sure all the permissions were correct to the letter, all the shens dotted and forns crossed. He didn’t want to give them a reason to look at them twice. They didn’t. The codes came through after a tense five minutes, and he was given official permission to leave Hosnian Prime’s orbit.

Hux started the autopilot and thought about warning Ren to brace for the acceleration, but decided to let him sulk. He’d be able to hear the ship powering up from the berth, and if he did nothing it was his own fault.

As the autopilot engaged and led them to the top of the public hangar, Hux forced himself to relax, to lean back in his seat. Airborne, with the sounds of the ship around him and the recycled air moving noisily through the vents, he felt more himself. Leaving a planet for space was always an immense relief, but especially so now, even with the impending landing on Ventu ahead of them. Hux knew it was false comfort, a lifetime of being aboard spacecraft, but he needed all the ease he could get now.

His confidence and sense of peace lasted until they were three back in the takeoff queue. That’s when the alert pinged on his datapad. He let out a sharp exhale, powering up the ship’s holoprojectors and playing it through the comm system for Ren’s benefit. He might as well know the mess he was making.

A cloaked green-skinned Miralan woman gave the report while seated next to a small holoprojection of Ben Solo in his early twenties. He vaguely recognized the publicity holo - it was from Howten, the mission Ben Solo had been reporting on in the Senate on they day they'd first met in Republic City. Ben was shaking hands with the Senator. Luke and the other student were behind him, dressed identically and looking much happier than Ben.

“Reports today indicate that Ben Solo, the famous Jedi prodigy of Luke Skywalker and the son of Senator Leia Organa and General Han Solo, went missing from Innis Hospital in the center of Republic City several days ago. Solo, thirty-four, checked himself out voluntarily, but was reported missing by his family this afternoon when Jedi Master Luke Skywalker could not locate him.”

The holo of Ben Solo disappeared, replaced with the ident photo of Hux, taken from the shoulders up, wearing his officer’s cap.

“Solo is believed to have been abducted by Armitage Hux, residence unknown. Armitage is the son of Imperial General Brendol Hux, who failed to surrender when the Empire fell and and escaped justice with an Imperial radical faction decades ago. Armitage Hux was seen in Republic City today, in a conference with Senator Organa, representing the Imperial faction and asking about Ben Solo’s whereabouts.”

“Did you hear that?” He heard thinly from the berth. “It’s your fault we got caught.” Ren paused. “They called your father General, but not you.”

Hux said nothing, watching as the autopilot moved them to the front of the queue, squeezing his fists around the control yoke and feeling his pulse increase. Moments. It was all they needed.

The holo continued, the Miralan putting a hand to her ear. “Yes, we’ve just received an update. Ben Solo was seen in the company of Armitage Hux earlier today, at the City Center Estate Hotel near the Senate complex. Witnesses testify that Ben Solo seemed confused and unsure what was happening, and appeared to be coerced by Hux.”

There was a holo of Hux dragging a shirtless, barefoot Kylo Ren out of the hotel by the elbow, Ren struggling and speaking unheard, Hux ignoring him. He heard Ren laugh from the berth, and Hux rolled his eyes. Just then, an alert came over the ship comms.

Hux turned off the holo and the alert system, overriding the safeties and slamming the autopilot into takeoff. There were more emergency warnings and multiple comm queries, the urgency superseding all the overrides. Hux ignored them. As he watched the autopilot power them out of the atmosphere, he noted with pleasure that the slave codes that the Republic attempted to use to override the ship controls did not work on his personal transport. At least the First Order had done that much correctly.

Annoyingly, he heard Ren snap the news broadcast back on in the berth, and heard the rest via tinny echo through the narrow hallway in the center of the ship. “The Skywalker-Organas are offering a substantial reward for the return of Ben Solo-”

“ _Ren_ ,” Hux shouted, furious, “We’re going to have every bounty hunter in the galaxy after us!”

“Then you’d better fly fast, General. Or let me do it.” Ren was using the annoying sing-song voice he knew got under Hux’s skin.

“Stay back there, Ren, or I’ll stun you.”

He retrieved his service pistol from where he’d stored it in the pilot’s compartment, and cursed. He had no extra weapons. Ren didn’t have his lightsaber. Hux could barely fly, he didn’t want to risk his life letting Ren do it, and neither of them would be able to operate the rudimentary weapon system that Hux had installed on the craft.

But they’d be using hyperspace lanes all the way out to the Outer Rim and beyond. Maybe they wouldn’t have to fight. Maybe they just needed to get out of the Hosnian system. That would keep them safe from the bounty hunters. As for the actual New Republic authorities, they wouldn’t be able to scramble ships fast enough to chase him, and he’d be free of them in Wild Space.

He urged the autopilot on and looked through the transparisteel viewport as they zipped through the orbital defenses, which of course weren’t armed. This was the New Republic. They wouldn’t shoot Hux down here.

 

* * *

 

The fuel calculation had been close, and by the time they reached Ventu, they were definitely going to need a Destroyer rendezvous in order to leave the planet. Hux stayed in the pilot’s seat, alternating between a death grip on the steering yoke and disassembling and reassembling his blaster. The lack of fuel wouldn’t matter, because whatever they needed, they would find on the surface. Hux had to believe it.

Hux cleaned his blaster and wracked his brain for a better course of action, something that would give him a reason to jump out of the hyperspace lane and navigate back to the _Finalizer_.

There was nothibg. Trying to figure out how to re-enter the First Order merely made the buzzing emptiness in his head grow worse.

As he finished assembling his blaster a third time, he shifted in his seat, turning his head to the back of the ship.

"Ren.  Ren!  Where's your lightsaber?"

His hand went to where his tags hung below his uniform.  Ren hadn't even seen them to know that the kyber crystal was missing.  If Hux didn't have it, it must still be in Ren's lightsaber.  Ben Solo's lightsaber, the light steady and violet, the hum low. Nothing like the one Kylo Ren wielded, though they were the same.  Ren obviously didn't have it with him now, though Kylo Ren never went anywhere without it.

When Ren didn't respond, Hux thought about going to the berth to check on him.  But what would he do once he got there?  Ren was sleeping.  He had been exhausted, and was used to sleeping all day.  Hux could stand there and watch him, but Ren didn't like that, and it was too pathetic anyway.  So he shifted back, laying his blaster on the console and disassembling it a fourth time.

Hours later, the ship broke atmosphere and landed on Ventu, the planet where he’d lied to gain entry to a mystic cave, and Ren had insisted it had altered the course of their lives, somehow.

He unbuckled himself and went to Ren, who was laying on top of the blankets in the berth, limbs splayed over the mattress, not having bothered to undress. His hair was still too short, and he still had dark stubble covering his face. There was a hint of redness across the bridge of his nose and cheeks from the sun in Republic City, and the poncho was bunched up around his waist. Hux knelt, laying a palm on his side and shoving him.

“Ren, we need to leave. Now.” It was currently night on this part of Ventu. Hux had no idea when the sentients used the cave, but he hoped they could gain access under the cover of darkness. Or perhaps Ren had a better idea, since he’d been paying attention to the ritual. Maybe it only worked in the middle of the day, during a waning third moon cycle when someone lied about needing to get in.

When Ren didn’t stir, Hux shook him harder, first annoyed, then alarmed. Ren was a light sleeper, and should have woken up immediately, though he had never risen gladly. Instead, Ren rolled boneless underneath his hand, and Hux noticed how hot his skin felt through the poncho. He slid his palm underneath to feel the skin of Ren's stomach, which was extremely hot to touch. Another hand on his forehead confirmed that it wasn’t just sun that made his skin so flushed.

Hux cursed and retrieved a basic med kit near the hatch, running a general diagnostic. Predictably, Ren had somehow developed a compromised immune system in a Republican hospital, and needed an antibiotic to clear up some sort of internal infection. There was an antibiotic course in the med kit, and Hux administered it, but Ren would need at least a day to regain consciousness.

Hux stayed kneeling next to the bed, studying Ren’s face, trailing a finger along his forehead and temple as he would if he were tucking his hair behind his ear. The short hair really was jarring. He ran his hand over it, then yanked it back suddenly, his breath catching. Without his eyes open, the unreality of this man being Kylo Ren hit him again, and Hux felt as if he needed to flee. He stood, blindly stumbling to the exit hatch, steadying himself with his hands against the narrow walls of the shuttle.

 _Our lives are bound_.

He opened the hatch and lowered the ramp to the surface. The cloying floral smell hit him, and he steadied himself in the doorway, letting his eyes adjust to the two Ventu moons and the spill of stars across the sky. He could see the odd forest, black in the night, the clearing he’d landed in with the outlines of the low buildings in the village barely visible. He spared a thought to the purple dust, the pollen in the air. He couldn’t see any of it. He blinked, breathing through his mouth. He pushed down every emotion he currently had. This was necessary, and he had to do it.

He strode down the ramp, half-running, but stopped abruptly when he saw a ring of the sentients standing at the edge of the clearing, the low landing lights from the shuttle reflecting in their eyes. He studied them, panic rising again. Were they hostile? What would they do? He needed to get to the cave. To do what, he didn't know. But he needed to go there.

No. Before that. The sentients. In front of him. Would they let him go farther?

All the small sentients wore the same cloth around their waists, tied in the front and draped over their hips and the back of their legs, their pulsing, overly large genitals on full display, though barely visible in the darkness.

One stepped forward and spoke its barking language. Hux clenched his jaw. He didn’t have a protocol droid this time. He didn’t have any translation aids on his ship, or the time to retrieve his datapad and run a program. So he drew his blaster and fired it in the air. It lit the clearing briefly in red, causing his vision to go dark as his eyes re-adjusted.

He saw the sentients gaze follow his arm, and the bolt. They said nothing, had no reaction, simply looked at him expectantly.

Hux stood for a moment, blaster raised, trying to decide what to do.

“Primitives,” he muttered, pushing through them and walking down the path.

To the cave.

Fuck it. He ran. He ran, and he could feel the dust rising around him, settling on his clothes, in the mess of his hair where it had almost all fallen loose, in the sweat collecting on his forehead and neck. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the cave.

From the clearing to the village, through the circle, then another path to the cave. He passed no other sentients. He remembered the path better than he should have, navigated it easily in the dark, and he remembered exactly where the cave was, nearly hidden in a slope down. He couldn’t believe he’d found it. He’d been arguing with Ren. He hadn’t been paying attention.

He ran through the entrance of the cave, and down, and down. The slimy walls. The smell. The light. The steep steps.

 _Our lives are bound_.

Their lives were bound. Yes. He needed Kylo Ren. The First Order needed Kylo Ren, and they both need the Order, the one they built together.

Hux slipped and fell on his ass, sliding down three of the stairs before catching himself. The shock of the fall went straight up his spine, aching and painful, nearly blinding him. He clenched his teeth and gasped through the ache, trying to steady his thoughts.

But to what end? What was he even doing down here?

“It wasn’t him.” Hux spoke aloud, his voice steady, echoing off the walls of the cave. This person, the one he’d found, the reduced mess of Ben Solo. That wasn’t Kylo Ren.

He needed Kylo Ren back. The strong, furious, irrational Force wielder that Hux knew, the one that had appeared on that base all those years ago after Hux had given up on him. He had been haunted and broken and forever Hux’s to command after that.

Hux needed the powerful, mad, furious Kylo Ren that craved guidance and simply wanted to be pointed in a direction, set loose, and told exactly how to burn the galaxy to ashes. Hux needed him back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ren has basically been hospitalized for years and is emaciated, weak, and not very healthy. To Hux, the change happened over a matter of days, and he has trouble reconciling it with his own image of Ren and takes it poorly. He rejects the idea of Ren being able to function in the First Order (mostly afraid Snoke will kill him, a few other selfish and petty things), though he refuses to reject Ren as his partner. Hux is as bothered by minor cosmetic things as by Ren's more physical changes - Ren also has short hair, no scars, and is unshaven. All of it together, suddenly and unexpectedly, makes Hux feel like Ren is a stranger. In case that's a problem. Hux will do better later, I promise.
> 
> Also, Ren has trouble using the Force, but that's not linked to his physical health. He has trouble using it for similar reasons, though - he didn't use it himself for over a decade, so he's trying to flex a muscle that isn't there. His strength and mastery of it has more to do with practice and use than physicality.


	7. Part Two: Yonec - Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some details about an intense mind invasion in the end notes if you need to skip that.

When Hux woke up, it was to his usual routine. He opened his eyes, staring into darkness in his bedroom on the _Finalizer_. He closed them again, willing himself to dismiss the remnants of drowsiness and fatigue tangled with his thoughts. He pictured himself on the bridge, and began making a schedule for himself. He’d check in with navigation first, because they'd been traveling to…

To where? Somewhere Ren wanted to go, some useless mission to Ventu.

His eyes opened again. No, they’d already been to Ventu, hadn’t they? He rubbed an eye with one hand as he sat up, his other hand automatically reaching to turn off the alarm before it started. The sheet pooled around his waist, and he felt the bite of cold against his nose and face, crawling over his bare skin as the sheet fell away. He frowned. They kept the room cold during their sleep shift, but it was never this bitter when he woke. He was reminded unpleasantly of shivering under thin sheets as a child, fully dressed in his uniform for extra warmth, wondering who in the dormitory wouldn’t wake up. He had always been leery of sleep when he was that cold, so he would entertain himself by constructing elaborate scenarios, imagining the deaths of certain cadets and playing out days and weeks of how the classes would change without them, where the next group of new recruits would come from and how long they'd last.

He kept his hand over his face, using his breath to warm his nose. It was too early for that kind of grimness, so he allowed himself the indulgence of rolling over to Ren’s side of the bed. Ren’s body was obnoxiously hot when he slept, and Hux pushed him away regularly. But sometimes the extra heat was a luxury, and annoying Ren by pressing his cold body against his would be pleasant.

When he reached out and found only cold, smooth sheets, he suddenly _remembered_.

He was awake, fully and completely, hand gripping the empty sheets tightly. The sheets were freezing. Ren hadn’t been here. Hadn’t _ever_  been here.

He pushed himself up on his hands and knees over Ren’s side of the bed, letting his hair fall in a curtain around his face as he stared at the pillow. The second pillow. Ren's pillow. After a moment, he slammed his fist into it.

“No.” The protest was overly loud in the darkness of the empty room. It should have sounded foolish, but it didn’t, or Hux didn’t care.

“I found you. I did everything. No one else would have-”

 _Luke Skywalker found him_ , his thoughts reminded him traitorously. _Luke Skywalker kept him when you didn’t want him_.

“ _No_ ,” Hux tried again. “I do. We left together, we went to…”

That cave. Where Hux had said that the man he’d found wasn’t Kylo Ren.

“He was… I didn’t want… _this_.” Hux brought his fist down into the pillow again. He sat back, because none of this was satisfying, none of it would change what he knew.  He felt naked and cold.  Defeated.  Bereft.

His ID tags collided with his chest as he settled back on his knees. He didn’t dare look at them. He didn’t want to know. He grabbed and squeezed them in his fist so hard that the duranium bit into the edges of his palm. He squeezed them harder, staring into the darkness.

He couldn’t tell if the thin slice of kyber crystal in its narrow durasteel setting was between his ID tags or not. He felt a tremor start in his hand, and he pushed down his fear.

Maybe he was wrong. Maybe it was all a terrible dream, and Ren was on a mission. Because. Otherwise, that meant he had left Ren behind on Ventu, sick and weak, and he never would have done that. He couldn't have brought Ren to the Order, to Snoke, when he was in that condition, but he would never have left him behind. He would never abandon Ren.

So. If he wasn’t on Ventu, and he wasn’t here, then Ren was… on a mission. If he checked, Ren’s kyber crystal would be with his ID tags. All of that had been a dream. A dream, a dream, a dream, it was foolish to think otherwise.

The more he thought about it, the less likely all of it seemed. Waking up in a world where he’d never met Ren? The Order being so badly affected? Hux going on some mission to… Coruscant, and Corellia, meeting Leia Organa? Ridiculous. How could any of that be? Ren wasn’t here because he was on a mission-

_that Hux couldn’t remember_

And he’d be back. It was ridiculous. Ren was fine, the Order was fine. That had been a dream-

_Hux didn’t dream_

A very vivid one, like the kinds that Ren had-

_he dreamed the First Order that Hux knew, the one who hadn’t been Kylo Ren_

Because what else could it be?

His hand only shook harder as he fought with his panic, his fear, the tentativeness that was so unlike him. He felt a sick dread in his chest.

He closed his eyes. The worst thing wasn’t that any of that could be true, that it had happened at all. The thing that tore at Hux was that ill, sheltered version of Kylo Ren being left behind on a ship on Ventu. Ren, who had waited so many years for Hux to come from him, who had possessed absolute and unshakable faith that Hux would, only to be together for less than a day, abandoned without a word after being heavily drugged.

“I didn’t. I wouldn’t.”

He never would have done that. It was… awful. Intolerable. So it simply couldn’t be true. He forced himself to unclench his hand from the tags. Of course the kyber crystal was there. Where else would it be? Ren’s lightsaber? 

He decided not to wallow any longer. The sooner he started his day, the sooner he could dismiss all of this. He swung his feet to the floor, feeling the ache as the too-cold surface hit his bare soles, and he exhaled sharply. He thought about ordering the lights up, but he clutched his ID tags instead, part of him not wanting to know if the room was missing Ren’s personality - his extra set of boots tossed carelessly and unkempt in a corner, a large dent in the wall near the door where Ren had lashed out, a set of weights that made the room feel more like a gym than a bedroom. Hux hated all of that anyway, and didn’t want to see it.

He told himself he knew the way to the ‘fresher well enough. He padded across the floor, his bare feet making little noise, the chill causing the skin to prickle all over his body. He was naked, which he most certainly would not be if he was really sleeping in this frigid room by himself. Of course Ren slept here.

He did turn the light on once he reached the ‘fresher. Manually, because he was done speaking to empty air this morning. The light snapped to one hundred percent, and Hux blinked blearily as his naked, disheveled appearance looked back at him in the mirror. He sneered, seeing the visible traces of panic on his face, then turned and entered the ‘fresher, choosing the waterless option and skipping his hair, because he was being ridiculous. He needed to calm down, and to go about his day as normal.

_What missions were they on right now?_

It was whatever came after that ridiculous mission on Ventu.

_They hadn’t decided yet_

Then he should go and decide, shouldn’t he?

_When did he ever forget a mission? When had he left something unplanned like that?_

The… dream, or whatever it was, had affected him far more than it should have. He needed to start his day, and everything would fall into place after that.

_Where was Ren?_

Ren was on a mission-

_Where?_

Hux turned off the ‘fresher and leaned against the wall, his skin stinging from the scouring blast of air. He pounded the wall with his fist once, twice, then pulled a fresh uniform from its place on the wall. He forced his mind clear as he dressed. Briefs. Socks. Undershirt. Pants. Suspenders. Boots. Tunic. He went through it all in order, ordered himself to think of nothing but the texture of fabric against skin.

He looked into the mirror above the sink and combed the product into his hair, meeting his own eyes and assuring himself that his expression was blank as always, that he wasn’t betraying his thoughts to everyone who looked at him.

_Go to the bridge. Start your day. Stop this._

“Stop this,” he said aloud, and finally felt childish about it. He heard traces of his father in the order to himself, and he shook his head. Brendol was dead. Good riddance.

He pulled on his greatcoat, put his holopad in his pocket, and went straight to the bridge. He didn’t once bother to check for the kyber crystal between his tags.

Why would he? It was there.

 

* * *

 

The doors opened soundlessly onto the familiar sight of the _Finalizer's_ bridge, calm and dark and comforting. The enormous main viewport revealed an unremarkable stretch of space, no nearby planets or systems that Hux recognized. He didn't allow his gaze to linger, more interested in who was currently working. The staffing levels were consistent with non-wartime operations, but…

Hux frowned as he walked along the elevated entry platform, looking down at the various command stations. The consoles were occupied by the regular duty officers, a mix of capable ex-Imperials and hand-picked candidates from the Officers Academy, but most of the junior officers were missing. The major operations appeared to have most of their staff - navigation and communications each had two of the three stations occupied, communications also had two of its officers. But the supplies station was only staffed by Norpo. Weapons and Tech were only staffed by Nevvy and Relopelius, respectively.

He dismissed it. It wasn’t unusual for the junior officers to come and go, or to be sent on errands elsewhere. He looked instead to where Colonel Bariss and Captain Peavey stood at the end of the elevated walkway, in front of the main viewport. A part of him, the part that continued to tell him loudly and repeatedly that he’d been absent a week on some stupid quest for Kylo Ren, was almost giddy at the familiarity of all this. The more rational part of his mind took this to be a good mood to start the day with, so he didn’t bother to hide it, allowing himself to relax incrementally into the sensation. The sound of his boots snapping against the polished durasteel announced his approach, and both officers turned to look at him.

“Colonel Bariss. Report on third shift.”

Bariss and Peavey both saluted. With a nod, Peavey dismissed himself, stepping down a nearby low walkway to speak to Lieutenant Norpo about some small matter to do with supplies.

Edrison Peavey, old and unassuming, wearing his uniform as if he was born to it.  He was very nearly a model Imperial soldier, skilled and obedient, and with good instincts for split-second decisions. It still amused Hux to have three commanders on the vessel that outranked him, and that one of them was Ren. Peavey still did most of the _Finalizer's_ actual command work - chores like personnel allotment, discipline, supply acquisitions, and logistics. He had acquired all the appropriate skills and experience while serving the Empire, and Hux found that rote daily tasks were one of the only things that the old Imperials were good for. There was a horrendous amount involved in running the day-to-day duties on a Star Destroyer, and officers like Peavey took pleasure in it. Or, at least, knew how to keep their heads down and say nothing about the larger operational and strategic decisions being taken out of their hands.

Peavey was also one of the more obedient of the old Imperials, and was not known to gossip or criticize Hux behind his back, nor hold Hux’s age against him. There were certainly those who deserved the command displacement more than Peavey. But Peavey had also been one of Brendol’s best friends, and his father had placed a great deal of faith in Peavey’s command decisions. No amount of strategic genius made usurping Brendol’s authority, even years later, any less pleasurable.

Bariss followed his gaze, watching Norpo salute Peavy, before turning and beginning her report. “General. There were reported sightings of the Loona pirates last night in the Denali system. I ordered a course correction. I’m confident we can catch them in the middle of an attack this time. With the resources of the _Finalizer_  nearby, we should be able to damage or destroy most of their fleet.”

Hux kept the color off his face as the buzzing started in his head, threatening to drown everything else. His denial fell away, replaced with the memory of Snoke taunting him about losing his composure. He wouldn’t allow that to happen again, so he had to act like this pleased him.

“Thank you, Colonel.” He offered her a thin, insincere smile that Bariss saw through immediately. The corners of her mouth tightened, and her eyes cooled incrementally, obviously trying to find the flaw in her report.

Hux didn’t give her the satisfaction of the confrontation, dismissing her rudely as he turned away. He didn’t want to follow Peavey down into the pits so soon, so he moved to stand above the main nav console, positioning himself to read the red-and-white calculations as they scrolled upward across the screen. He clenched his hands behind his back hard enough to feel his gloves creak, and addressed the back of the officer’s head. “Lieutenant Hoyt, please pull up the last two weeks of coordinates and navigational orders.”

Lieutenant Hoyt turned and frowned, looking first at Hux, then over to where Bariss stood, still scowling. He rolled his eyes in mock frustration. Apparently the bridge was in no mood for a petty power struggle this morning. He turned on his heel. “Thank you, Colonel. You are relieved of command.” He paused as he sensed the attention of all the officers nearby. They were all waiting for something else. He huffed out a sigh, deciding in the moment to offer Bariss some sort of public acknowledgment. It was the thing to do. “I will inform you if the pirates are sighted, and I’d like you to take paramount in that conflict.”

Bariss’s face brightened, and her posture relaxed back into a confident attention. Hux concealed his own scowl. He hated feeding her ego publicly. She had always been ambitious-

_she is ambitious, right now, this is Bariss, the real Kor Bariss, everyone is real don’t dismiss it_

-and it was unlike Hux not to lead an operation like this personally. _Any_  command operation. She only took care of emergencies during his off shifts. Hux was very careful not to give her any unwarranted scraps of distinction, lest she use it as leverage against him.

He was unsure why his dismissal just now had been a gaffe, but he was annoyed by having to give her even this chore, insignificant as it was. But he told himself it wouldn’t matter. Everything would change once Ren came back-

_they were just pirates, they were nothing, a regional patrol could handle them, doing a job like this himself would be humiliating_

-and Hux couldn’t care less.

He turned back to Lieutenant Hoyt, who had dutifully pulled up the list of coordinates Hux had ordered. He watched as they scrolled slowly from the bottom of the screen.

It was the same. They were slightly closer to the Outer Rim than they had been-

_the last time Hux woke up like this_

His hand came up to where his ID tags hung beneath his tunic, and he pressed them tightly against his chest. He couldn’t justify this to himself.

It was real, and it was still happening.

He very carefully, very calmly, straightened and counted to ten. He would not do this publicly. He would go elsewhere to make the necessary plans. But part of him still fought this madness, still wanted to ask everyone in the room about Kylo Ren. Certainly they knew him. Ren was essential, and also an unforgettable aberration in their everyday operations. They had to know him.

But asking about Ren wasn’t helpful. He knew where Ren was, and he knew what would happen if he asked here.

“Thank you, Lieutenant. That course will be fine.” He turned to the nearby tracking console, where a single lieutenant was studying tech that Hux suddenly realized was almost a decade old. His stomach clenched, and the buzzing in his head grew worse. He pushed it down with an iron hand and promised himself privacy once he got his bearings. He’d need to stay here longer, though. Retiring to his office so early in his shift would be noted.

“Inform me when the scanners pick up unregistered freighters.”

“Yes, sir.”

He nodded in acknowledgement, then he went down into the pits on the other side of the walkway, seating himself in front of an antiquated Command console that had too many screens, and began pulling up old mission briefs.

All of it was unfamiliar, low-ranking busywork. Escorting supplies. Investigating low-level smuggling. Driving away petty insurgents from already-conquered planets.

He pulled up a map of their territories and sectors and studied it, his hands beginning to shake. He told himself, again, to calm down. He’d done this before. Fear was never useful.

But this time, the First Order territory was even smaller. Not by much. The Orkott systems weren’t on the map. The Fula route was missing, and all associated systems-

“General?” A emergency comm immediately popped up on his console from Lieutenant Cryer. Hux frowned, then quickly masked his expression. Cryer was a diplomacy officer, and Hux would have trouble feigning knowledge of what he was doing in this version of the Order. He quickly typed Cryer’s name into another console, pulling up info about his active mission to reference.

“We’ve received communication from the Algol system. Republican representatives have landed on the surface of Palma, in Parolit City. Is it actionable?”

Hux allowed himself a frown of consideration for Cryer's benefit, then glanced down briefly, consulting his map of territories. The Algol system was in the Outer Rim, and not one that they directly controlled. Or, at least, as far as Hux’s memory allowed, for whatever that was worth anymore.

He saw that it was labeled a ‘diplomatic territory,’ which was not a designation that was used. By him, anyway. It either was or it wasn’t under the control of the First Order, and the Republic rarely did diplomatic missions so far away from the Core Worlds.

The ancient Command console appeared to be having issues pulling up details about Cryer’s current mission, and Hux cursed under his breath and braced himself to ask what was probably a stupid question.

“Do we have contacts among the government there?”

The Lieutenant paused, a look of confusion on his face. “Of course, sir.”

Hux sighed through his nose, masking his frustration from Cryer, and resisted the urge to run his hand over his hair. What was Cryer asking for, exactly?

Rather than embarrass himself further, he began addressing Cryer in a patient, quiet tone that he used for teaching younger officers. Cryer was young enough that this shouldn’t come off as condescending. And if it did, Cryer wasn’t in a position to take offense. “Lieutenant Cryer, list possible courses of action.”

“Yes, sir.” More confusion, and the Lieutenant paused, but gave the list as ordered. “We may wait and see what the purpose of the Republic’s visit is, if it’s a diplomatic introduction or trade negotiations. If it’s the latter, we can arrange to have them negotiate directly with the planet to see what kind of aid or trade they wish to provide. We can also ensure the Republic negotiates directly with our representatives, and skew the trade negotiations in our favor.” The Lieutenant paused. The response was rote, in a tone that indicated that all of it was standard, below Hux’s notice.

But Cryer continued. “Here, however, I was under the impression we were going to simulate a war the next time the Republic made contact. The stated objective was to gauge the state of the Republic’s military and see if they’d offer martial aid. Or, failing that, what they’d offer by way of supplies to a struggling planet.”

Hux blinked, and kept his face completely neutral. They were faking wars now? He looked down at the map on his console. How was that even done? What a colossal waste of time.

Before Hux could let himself process that, he saw the report on Cryer finally appear on the other console. Rather than let Cryer watch him process basic information, he jerked his head to the side, then held a hand up in feigned pause. “A moment, Lieutenant.”

He snapped the comm on hold, then pulled up the history of Palma. Apparently Hux himself had authorized the negotiations as a way to keep a foot in Republican territory. Glancing down at his map again, he noticed 'diplomatic territories' were worryingly prevalent in the Outer Rim. Presumably they were all potential Republic contacts in need of or receiving aid. He sneered. Perhaps someone new had a pet project. He somehow doubted they were receiving the kind of support they actually needed. There were also several 'diplomatic territories' in the Mid Rim that were previously First Order colonies that paid lip service to the Republic, useful for monitoring the Senate’s current interests.

Looking back at Cryer’s file, he noted that Arkanis and several planets in the Arkanis system were ‘diplomatic territories,’ and it appeared that Hux had authorized sham wars on at least three planets for the benefit of the New Republic. His own notes on Palma indicated that preparations had been made to stage a guerrilla insurgency when conditions were favorable, to see if they could milk sympathy for the Palmans, a peaceful race, for more supplies.

With Cryer still on hold, Hux allowed himself to drag a gloved hand across the top of his hair. This was foolish, a ridiculous waste of resources to trick the New Republican government to give them a handful of insignificant supplies.

The Order must need them that badly. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then gave himself to the count of ten to compose himself.  He opened his eyes, composed his face, then re-activated the comm with Lieutenant Cryer.

“Authorize two units of Troopers to go to the surface. Make sure they are…” his eyes drifted back down to the report on Parolit City. “Give my order that they are to be disguised as Falzian insurgents, and are not make use of their armor. Stun weapons only, unless they are firing on the New Republic delegation.”

“Understood.” The Lieutenant shifted, looking uncomfortable. Hux suppressed more frustration. There was something wrong with what he had just ordered.

“Do I need to spell anything out for you, Lieutenant?” he asked sharply, and Cryer saluted.

“No, sir. It’s just… where are the two units of Troopers coming from?”

Hux’s face contorted in anger for a moment before he got himself back under control. Asking the General of the army how to allot two units of Stormtroopers was ridiculous.

“Ask someone else, Lieutenant. Dismissed.”

Hux cut the holo and went back into researching ‘diplomatic territories,’ trying to discover the logic behind _why_  he would orchestrate sham wars.

The answer appeared to be food. The missing Fula hyperlane was a path to most of their agricultural supply network. Without it…

Hux dug through the records for evidence supporting this, and he was still not able to believe he had let this happen.

Without those planets to supply their food, apparently the solution was not to seek out other planets to provide the supplies, but to stage wars for the New Republic’s benefit in the Outer Rim, so they could re-distribute the aid that the New Republic provided. It was true that there was a Senator whose pet project was sending goodwill ambassadors to the poor unfortunates of the Outer Rim. They did not, in most cases, establish well-guarded routes or engage in trade with these planets that would benefit them on a more permanent basis. They were simply ego missions.

He sneered at the screen, both at the condescension of the Senate and his own strategies. That was overly convoluted, even as a desperate strategy.

His disdain was interrupted by another comm, this one non-emergency. He took in the ident quickly, planning on dismissing it, but his hand stopped just short of jabbing the dismissal and his eyebrows went up when he realized who the caller was.

It was Cardinal, Brendol’s red-armored pet Trooper Captain. He’d seen the last of faithful, obedient Cardinal nearly two years ago, when Phasma had lied about killing him.

_Phasma had reported to him that she'd killed Cardinal. She was rattled, or as rattled as she ever was after a fight. Hux had nodded, congratulated her, and acted pleased by this. Cardinal had been Brendol’s creature, and it had been an easy thing to explain that they were well rid of him. He had feigned concern about her injuries, ordered a droid to give her a private exam, and left her to it._

_With Phasma reliably occupied, he had retreated to one of the private comm suites, set the security on the highest clearance available, and summoned Ren using one of the most annoying and persistent methods he had, which was to set off an alarm in Ren’s personal physical suite that couldn’t be deactivated by anyone but Hux himself. Hux wouldn’t turn it off until Ren spoke to him._ _Ren had appeared almost ten minutes later, the slam of his palm against the security console announcing his arrival. He had been in the middle of his routine, and had done the bare minimum to make himself presentable - his tunic was sloppy and askew, his belt and gloves were missing, and the buckles on his boots were hanging open._

_By that time, Hux had learned more about what had happened, and had been numb in body and mind, an at uncharacteristic loss as to how to deal with the situation. Ren’s arrival had dispelled some of his shock, and given him a modicum of normalcy to cling to. Hux had sneered at his appearance, not bothering to voice the rote comment about the way Ren presented himself aloud, knowing Ren would hear it anyway._

_“General,” Ren had said thinly, the title crackling through his mask’s vocoder. “Can I help you?”_

_Both Ren’s rage and the rank smell of his sweat had assaulted Hux in the small room. Hux hadn’t bothered to stand when Ren entered, but he maintained eye contact with his mask and was careful to keep his expression neutral. He didn't answer Ren directly, but offered a more sincere response. He had pushed the chaos of his thoughts to the front of his mind for Ren to examine, as well as the relief Hux had felt at his presence._

_Ren had grown less tense, his shoulders relaxing. His anger and annoyance had been forgotten, replaced by concern that bordered on alarm. "What?”_

_Hux had turned back to the console, pulling up a live security holofeed of Phasma’s unnecessarily long physical exam (she had left her helmet on) on one screen, and the recorded security holofeed of her fight with Cardinal on another._

_“Phasma just told me that she executed Cardinal as a traitor.”_

_He had felt Ren’s concern deepen. “Cardinal is a traitor? He’s not. He’s just trying to get rid of Phasma, and she finally took him out.”_

_“He wasn’t a traitor, any more than I am. But Phasma lied about that. And Cardinal defected.”_

_“You… what? He_ defected _? Cardinal?”_

_If he had been in a better mood, it would have been entertaining to watch Ren react. He had been surprised, because Hux didn’t offer praise lightly. He had also been shocked that Hux had said anything complementary at all about Cardinal. And finally, there had been his expected fury about Cardinal's betrayal. Ren hadn't needed to ask again. He had seen the truth of it in Hux's thoughts, in Hux's numb shock._

_Ren hated traitors. He scanned for them obsessively, and took a kind of pleasure in hunting down rogue elements of foreign governments. That it had happened directly under Ren's nose, and had been their most loyal soldier, would be a blow to Ren. Hux had let the footage of the fight play on the console. He hadn't been watching it, had already seen enough. More than enough._

_“I would have sooner expected Cardinal to space himself than turn traitor. He’s the only Trooper I’ve ever seen who recommended_ himself _for reconditioning. More than once. For extremely minor infractions.” He had turned and faced Ren, letting his own confusion show. “He left, Ren.”_

_Hux had stared up into Ren’s mask until Ren had removed it, revealing a scowl and the results of his aborted physical routine. His hair had been drenched with sweat, the skin of his face slick with it, the neck of his high collar damp. He had run a hand through his hair, pulling at it, wringing the sweat from it and looking obviously displeased, furious at being interrupted with this improbable situation._

_Something about Ren standing there, sweaty and angry and unable to comprehend what was happening, had made Hux lash out.“Did I interrupt your_ routine _, Ren? I apologize. I know how important staying fit is for you.”_

_Ren hadn't taken offense. Instead, he'd smirked, because he was insufferable, but his smirk had made something inside Hux unclench. “You won’t mind my routine later.”_

_“Is that supposed to be charming? For a mind-reader, you certainly do have trouble reading my moods.”_

You’re the one that called me here _, Ren had reminded Hux, speaking directly into his mind, perhaps for emphasis._

_“I’m not wasting your time,” Hux had snapped, growing impatient himself and gesturing to the monitors. “Do you think I would have bothered with you if it wasn’t important?”_

_“Do you need to hold my hand while you watch these? What’s the point, Hux? Why do you think Cardinal’s a traitor? He’s not.”_

_“Have you ever known me to overreact and misread a situation?”_

_“You do it all the time when it’s my situation,” he had muttered under his breath, still with a trace of anger. But he had no other objections, because it was true that Hux would not have made this accusation lightly. Neither Troopers nor Officers_ defected _. It was unheard of, between the loyalty checks and the conditioning programs._

_Ren had stared at Hux for a moment before fixing his attention on the monitors. Hux had felt the edge of Ren’s anger dulling as he calmed himself down and tried to understand what was happening. “It can’t be what you think. I’ve done multiple loyalty checks on Cardinal, at your request, even though you knew he didn’t need them.” Ren had looked more annoyed, shaking his head. “He is more loyal than you, you're right about that. He even put up with all that petty garbage you did to him.”_

_Hux had turned back to the live holovid and watched as Phasma dismissed the droid, efficiently putting her armor back on. “I wouldn’t believe it myself if I hadn’t seen it.” He had pressed his lips, then spun back to Ren. “Phasma lied about it, which is why I called you here. She told me that Cardinal had been a traitor and that she’d killed him. I commended her, said all the right things, but knew she was lying. Cardinal is no traitor, and I didn’t think she’d be able to walk away from a real fight with him.”_

_Ren had considered, watching the fight on the other screen, then nodded slowly. “They’re evenly matched. Different, but both effective.”_

_Ren’s assessment had Hux more confidence, proof that his own read of the situation wasn’t inaccurate, that this had actually happened. He had continued. “She didn’t kill him, but I thought they'd fought about something else, that she'd ambushed him, maybe. I assumed she'd made up the part about him being a traitor. He… wasn’t. And I still don’t think that’s what they were fighting about. He.” Hux had stopped himself, shaking his head. He watched the holovid of the fight as Cardinal pull a knife, then a container that caught in the low light of the room._

_He had shaken his head again, harder, clenching his eyes shut briefly. “I needed to pull the security footage to confirm before she-”_

_“Yeah,” Ren had interrupted, crossing his arms, his mood switching to caution, curiosity. Phasma would most certainly delete the footage from the system, or otherwise doctor it. She would feel threatened if she suspected that Hux had seen the vid. Hux hadn't cared to see what she would do when she was threatened, which was a good enough reason to call Ren into the suite with him. He had admitted as much to Ren in the privacy of his mind. Ren had accepted the weakness without thought or judgment, had simply nodded, glancing over briefly before looking back to the fight. "Okay. I’ll watch her.”_

_“_ Really _watch her. Do you understand?”_

_Ren had scowled at him, finally collapsing into a chair. Hux had lifted his lip. Despite the situation, he had still been disgusted by Ren using furniture while so sweaty._

_“I understand better than you do. I know what kind of monster she is.”_

_“I still want to keep her,” Hux had interjected quickly, because they’d had this argument before. Ren had sighed._

_“She’ll turn on you. What if I’m not around?”_

_“I know better than to be alone with her.” Hux had switched the security feeds, activating a code that would keep Phasma visible on the monitor. It had followed her to the feed in the hallway, then switched again as she made her way to a transport._

_“She’ll make it happen.”_

_“Don’t let her turn on you, Ren.” Hux had looked over at Ren, had silently willed him to understand how serious this was. “She’ll know we had this little chat, even if she isn’t sure I saw the footage.”_

_“She’s sure of everything.” Ren had run his fingers through sweat-damp hair again, agitated. But he hadn't been agitated enough, Hux had been able to read the edge of his thoughts on the matter. He had been worried about Phasma turning on Hux, but did not consider her a threat to himself._

_“I mean it. Don’t be over-confident. Be_ careful _.” Hux had raised his voice, and used a tone that indicated his patience was short and his authority absolute. It had been the kind of thing that would have normally made Ren snap at him and leave. But he hadn't. He'd only turned to fixed his attention more fully on Hux._

_“We’ve never given her a reason to kill us before,” Hux had added quietly. “She’s smart, Ren. I can’t always predict her. But she's smart enough to know that she has to get to me through you, and she knows she has to blindside you. You'll never see her attack coming.” Hux wouldn't see it either. But he hadn't wanted to admit this. It was the thing he did better than Ren. Ren had likely sensed it in his thoughts anyway._

_Ren had said nothing, had just waved a hand to dismiss it. But Hux had been satisfied that Ren's thoughts mirrored his own wariness. Hux's concern had been very blunt, and Ren had been alarmed in turn. Hux was usually more circumspect. But Phasma was worth the transparency._

_Ren’s attention had gone back to the fight footage. The fight had stopped, and Phasma was destroying the tiny box that Hux knew must contain one of those little golden beetles. The kind that only he and Phasma and Brendol had known of. The numbness had washed over Hux again, a sick feeling gathering in the pit of his stomach. He'd clenched his fists in his lap._

_“He came into our quarters the other day,” Hux had said absently. “I didn’t mention it.”_

_“Of course you didn't. You probably forgot about him as soon as he left.”_

_“He asked about Brendol.”_

_Ren had turned back to him, leaning forward in the chair. “About how he died?”_

_“Yes.” He had paused as he watched Phasma finish the fight and leave the chamber. Cardinal had been on the floor, bleeding out. “I told him.” He'd looked at Ren, shrugging weakly, still shaken by all of this in a way he couldn’t dismiss. “I knew he was loyal. And he loved my father. He was always Brendol’s favorite. Somehow, he knew Phasma had done it.” He had gestured to the screen. "I don't even remember if I told him how. He had one of the beetles that she used on my father, that's what he was waving around in the holo. He must have confronted her about that. Cardinal confronted Phasma, not the other way around."_

_Ren’s brow had creased. “You told him the truth about your father? Why?”_

_“I just…” Hux had sighed, sounding wary. “It was just_ Cardinal _. I knew it wouldn’t change anything.”_

_Hux’s attention had gone back to the recorded holofeed, helpless, some awful compulsion forcing him to watch the worst part over again. Someone entered the feed, retrieved Cardinal, and left the ship with him. Hux had a trail of feeds until the two of them disappeared into an escape pod, completely unobserved. Impossibly so._

_Cardinal. Watching it had been even worse than Phasma lying and Hux finding out about it. It was more dangerous. It was like the bottom dropping out of Hux’s world. If Cardinal could leave, anyone could leave, any of the officers or Troopers could. Just._

_Abandon the Order. Built on a rock-solid foundation of unconditional loyalty. Cardinal was their cornerstone, more than any other person._

_The screen had gone dark when the recording ended. On the other screen, Phasma had exited the transport and entered a public telecom suite. She had gone to a console and began entering commands. Hux's gaze went back to the black screen. She wouldn't know for sure. He had covered his tracks too well. But she'd suspect, and she'd know he would share his concerns with Ren._

_Ren had broken the silence. “Who took him?” His voice had been deceptively flat. Hux had been able to feel the conflict in Ren's mind. Ren’s initial reaction matched Hux’s. Hux had also tried to justify Cardinal’s defection as a kidnapping._

_“She was a prisoner he was interrogating privately.” Hux had allowed himself run a hand over his hair. “I don’t. She was with the Resistance. I don’t know why he kept her capture a secret, why he didn’t turn her over. He’s never once broken protocol before.”_

_Hux had turned, holding Ren’s gaze. “She didn’t kidnap him. He wouldn’t have left with her if he hadn’t wanted to. She couldn’t have left without his help. You know that. I know that.”_

_He had felt Ren’s rage, blinding and complete, wrapping around his thoughts. Hux had closed his eyes and embraced it, not having enough of his own wits to form his own opinions or stop Ren._

_“It’s fucking…_ Cardinal _,” Ren had hissed, standing and pacing, pulling at his sweat-soaked hair with his bare fingers, his expression contorted. “He wouldn’t have. Maybe he was… unconscious.”_

_Hux hadn't responded. He'd put his face in his hands, losing himself in Ren’s emotions as they overwhelmed the both of them. Hux had responded by shutting down mentally, allowing Ren to think for the both of them. Ren had responded with his physicality, using a combination of his fists and the Force to make a mess of the suite. Hux had been only dimly aware of the destruction. There had been flashes of sparks barely visible with his face covered, the sensation of heat from the same.  He had heard Ren's strangled grunts, the sounds of his fists striking monitors, the groaning, crushing noises of the consoles and panels folding in on themselves. There had been a smell of ozone and burning. Hux had let it happen._

_When he had looked up, Ren had been still, his back to Hux, his shoulders heaving with deep breaths. His hands were at his sides, bleeding freely onto the floor. But when Ren had turned to look at Hux, his twisted expression had softened immediately, the corners of his mouth turning down._

_“He asked about Brendol, Ren, and I told him.” Hux had let his fingers run through his hair as he dropped his gaze to the floor. He had known he wouldn’t be returning to active duty that day. Couldn’t. He'd hated himself for the real reason he had called Ren to the suite. He’d told himself it was protection against Phasma. It wasn’t. It was because he couldn't handle the implications of Cardinal's defection by himself, and had needed to tell someone else about it._

_He'd sneered at the floor, disgusted with himself. He had ordered himself to stand and leave the room, to do something practical to fix it. Letting anyone, even Ren, see him in such a state had been shameful. But he hadn't been able stop himself, couldn’t even look at Ren as he had let all of it pour from his mouth._

_“I told him about Brendol like it was nothing. Because he deserved it. He deserved to know, and I wanted to hurt him with it, because he deserved that too. For not being smart enough to see my father for who he really was. And I didn’t feel any particular way about it then, but…”_

_Betrayal. It had hurt Cardinal badly enough to turn traitor. And that hurt. Undeniably. In a way that Hux hadn't thought he could be hurt._

_Ren had grabbed his wrists with the bloody ruins of his hands. Hux had glanced up into Ren's furious expression, lifting his lip at the sight of Ren’s split, seeping knuckles and the warm trickle of blood down the sleeve of his tunic. He had felt the pressure of Ren's fury all around him. Fury, and something else._

_“Fix my hands.”_

_Hux had stared at him, feeling the pressure of his regard, Hux’s own thoughts too numb to process Ren’s right now._

_“Go to medical.”_

_“No. In the room.”_

_Hux had blinked at him. Ren had smelled like coppery blood and rank sweat, the worst kind of post-sparring group ‘fresher combination from Hux’s academy days._

_He had stood. “We’ll need to fill the tub, you animal. I don’t want to smell you while I’m putting your hands back together.”_

_It had been enough of a direction for the rest of his day that he could parse Ren’s relief, saw his eyes soften, watched him nod._

_“Put your helmet back on. Perhaps your attire will go unnoticed if they see your helmet and hands and assume you beat someone to death.”_

_Ren had glanced at his helmet, then held up his hands again. “Put the helmet on for for me.”_

“Captain Cardinal,” Hux acknowledged in the present, surprised that his voice remained so steady. He felt the sickening sense of betrayal surge up again. He was unable to look at the clean-cut model Trooper in the holoprojection and think of him as anything but the worst kind of traitor.

“Orders received to deploy two units of Stormtroopers. Where would you like the units withdrawn from, General?”

It took all of Hux's willpower not to ask Cardinal if he had interrogated any Resistance spies lately and liked what he heard. He tried to focus on what Cardinal was actually asking him, but his request was even more inane and out-of-character.

“From _reserves_ , Captain Cardinal,” Hux snapped, waving a hand through the air. “Any reserve. Wherever you’d like. Find 200 Troopers, and send them to Palma. _I don’t care.”_

“Reserves are depleted, General Hux,” Cardinal replied without missing a beat or betraying any of the discomfort Cryer had struggled with earlier when Hux had issued confusing orders. “Troopers will need to be withdrawn from active duty. Where would you like them taken from?”

Hux stared at the holo for a moment, then cut the transmission, noting clinically that hanging up on Cardinal still felt good. He pulled up the logistics of the Trooper program.

And found that Cardinal was right.

There were two less units per Star Destroyer for reserves, so most Troopers were designated active duty. There were two less Star Destroyers, period, than… the last time Hux had checked. The _Finalizer_ was the only Star Destroyer that had been manufactured for the First Order, the rest were Imperial hulks. There were units of Stormtroopers deployed planetside in a handful of systems. In each case, it was far less than Hux would have allowed, not enough to make a difference in active duty or security situations. And there were, of course, several units tied up in the sham wars. Apparently those had been given priority.

He pulled up more numbers. The TIE fleets were paltry, with each Destroyer housing only a fraction of the ships they should have. The pilot training program was small, and currently inactive. The ship designated as the Naval training vessel, the _Pallation_ , didn’t exist. There was a small Naval academy on Arkanis, but it was shuttered and dark. But why was it there at all? They did not do ground operations, _especially on a planet in New Republic territory_. The buzzing dissonance in Hux’s head grew louder again, and this time he tried to let it drown his thoughts. It couldn't, not quite.

The intake of new Troopers for training was pathetic, even smaller than last time. There were only a few hundred cadets in Cardinal’s program. Hux considered sending them to fight the sham war in order to spite Cardinal. The training program was Cardinal’s pride and joy, and Hux hated that Cardinal was integral to it. They’d suffered greatly after he’d left, and never really found a suitable replacement.

He checked his impulse to antagonize Cardinal. Was it because Cardinal was a traitor, or because he’d always hated Cardinal? He decided it didn’t matter, and re-established the comm with Cardinal, not waiting for the Captain to greet him.

“Empty the program, Captain Cardinal. Take all the cadets to Palma and lead the guerrilla war yourself.”

There was a burst of static from Cardinal, and Hux suppressed a smirk.

“What about the program, General?”

“You will continue to operate it on the surface of Palma. You will be going with them, to continue the usual training exercises in the context of a mission. It’s an excellent opportunity with a low-risk objective.”

Cardinal shifted. He was about to object. Cardinal never objected. He was obedient to a fault, Brendol had made sure. Everything in Hux wanted to call him a traitor.

“General… there aren’t sufficient resources to train with holos and weapons planetside. The program… the program will suffer.”

“Captain, I thought you somewhat more  _creative_  than this. I’ve praised you myself for your flexibility and skill with adapting to the student’s needs, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is this not valuable ground-based experience for them? Ideal, since it is neither dangerous nor a simulation? And you would agree that it actively serves the needs of the First Order in a way that closed training would not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the varied ages of the cadets will look authentic.” Hux nodded, still suppressing a smirk, his fury nearly choking him the longer he spoke to Cardinal without ordering his death. “Make it happen, Captain. I don’t care about the details. Dismissed.”

He cut the holo and sat back in his chair, his posture suffering slightly. After a moment, he realized he couldn’t play this role a moment longer. He stood, restless, balling his fists at his sides and staring down at the outdated, multi-screened command console.

The buzzing in his head was loud enough to drown out almost every thought. Anxiety twisted in his stomach, and his hands were hot in his gloves. The lingering horror of seeing Cardinal in active service sat sourly in his mouth. This was wrong. All of it was still wrong.

He needed Ren. He needed to confirm that Ren wasn’t with the Order, needed to see that he’d vanished long ago from the public stage.

 _Needed to know what happened to the Ren on Ventu_.

Abruptly, he decided the anxious pain was hunger. He had forgotten to eat before his shift.

His hand came up to his chest again, not even registering the press of his ID tags in his skin as he gazed around the comm stations, looking for Peavey and spotting him at a research station. He knew his step was too awkward, too fast, that he was ignoring at least one officer seeking his attention. He didn’t care. When he spoke, his voice was too loud.

“Redirect any command decisions to my personal comm. I’ll be in my private office shortly.”

He turned and left, leaving Peavy to address the “Yes, General” to his retreating back.

 

* * *

 

Though it was a relief to be away from the eyes of the rest of the ship, his office was not the familiar comfort he was seeking. His earlier conversation with Cardinal made it into his father’s office again, his attempt to fill it with completely different furniture in different places visible for what it was - a sad attempt to erase Brendol’s memory. He went to where his father’s tacky and overly-large desk had stood, in front of a transparisteel wall that looked into a biological plant. The desk had been a black nullwood monstrosity, hand-carved by a team of Bith artisans, and contained all manner of useless hidden drawers in impractical sizes. It was the old Commandant's desk from the Imperial Academy on Arkanis, recovered after the planet had fallen to the New Republic. It had been a risk that Hux had abhorred, even as a child. His father went to a great deal of trouble transporting it around all the ships they’d occupied during their exile. Hux had burned it immediately after his father had died, and had the floors of the office redone when the deep impressions from its many legs could not be removed. Still, the ghost of it lingered, moreso than the memory of his father perched behind it. Annoyingly, the office had always felt incomplete without it.

He sat at his own very practical durasteel desk, fitted with modern tech input, and spun to face the other large viewport that looked out into space and took up the full wall at his back. Again, the view was unremarkable, nothing but an anonymous field of stars, no nearby systems to admire. Having two glass walls in the office had always made Hux feel like he was being scrutinized from too many angles, though the office was not visible in the biological plant, and no one looked in from space, generally.

So he did the looking, staring out at the unremarkable view of the local systems and seeing nothing, willing the buzzing in his head to still. He dismissed the outrage of Cardinal’s continued service, reminding himself that he’d done this once before. He just needed Ren. Ren could interrogate Cardinal now, to find out why he had betrayed them so cruelly. Then he could pin Cardinal to the interrogation chair with his lightsaber. Again and again and again. 

Eventually, his thoughts slowed, and he decided that eating would help settle him further. He spun back to the desktop and entered an order for a droid-delivered meal into the system. But when he pulled up the menu, he noticed that the options were… limited. Each meal was simply named by time of day, and no further details were given. The only flexibility was a choice of water, caf, or tea to drink. Hux nearly slammed the holoscreen back into the desk when he saw it. Even Troopers were given a full menu with meal choices.

The hospitality droid brought the meal promptly, sounding the door chime for entry within minutes. Hux was pleased with the speed, but the pleasure was short-lived. When he pulled the flat cover off the deep tray, he sighed, recognizing the same beige bowl of gray nutritive paste he’d grown up with. It was served in an even smaller portion than he remembered. He spooned a bite into his mouth, noting that it was the same thick, disgusting texture it had always been, and perhaps even more flavorless. But it no longer triggered his gag reflex, which was something. He swallowed, the old oft-repeated lines about the nutritive benefits running through his head.

He paused, spoon halfway to his mouth, when he realized he’d never actually learned what was in the paste. They’d discontinued the program before Hux had gained enough of a promotion to have any sort of say in dietary needs. And he well knew how desperate they’d been when he’d last tasted it.

He studied the paste, wondering what it actually contained. Then, slowly, brought the spoon to his lips and swallowed another thick, tasteless mouthful. He decided not to look it up.

The tea wasn’t even taurine, which was cheap and readily available. Whatever it was, it was little more than bitter water, not even served hot. His stomach roiled in protest after he finished the last of the cold tea, and he decided that it had, in fact, not been hunger which had twisted his stomach so painfully. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, staring into the blank holoscreen, his muscles so tense with dread that they ached. But he had to move forward, had to change all of this. So with jerky motions, he began the system searches that would help him confirm his suspicions about Ren.

This Kylo Ren, of course. There was nothing he could do about the one on Ventu. Perhaps he’d ceased to exist once Hux had entered the cave. He must have. Otherwise, Hux would have left him behind, and he simply _hadn’t_.

He did a search through the First Order system for ‘Kylo Ren,’ and found nothing. He was still missing, of course. Or rather, had never been here at all.

Hux glanced at viewport that overlooked the biological plant. There were three biological plants, and they produced food, oxygen, and leisure areas for the population of 80,000 aboard the _Finalizer_. They each took up space on several decks, and each was maintained by a staff of officers and crew that arranged and re-arranged paths, plantlife, and yield to provide stimulation and dietary variety. The staff was given free reign to design them, within reasonable parameters, and each of the biological plants was very different as the staff competed to create the most visited leisure area and the highest yield gardens. They were extremely popular, and at least a thousand bodies were in each at any given time, working or enjoying them.

This one was dark, so the viewport was black. He turned his attention back to his holoscreen and searches, but didn’t bother to check if the other two plants were producing. He knew the TIE fleet was down to a third of its strength, and the training program was entirely housed on the _Absolution_ , where Cardinal was, so those bodies also weren’t here. He idly wondered about Phasma, but didn’t have the heart to look up her current assignment. He didn’t want to know, and she was irrelevant to his current plans.

Before he decided what to do about Kylo Ren, he looked back through the years and put together a detailed timeline of the First Order for himself. This time, there were less of the types of missions that Ren would have helped with. They still invaded planets with Troopers, but only upon request. They weren’t nearly as aggressive. There was a lot more negotiating. Their coups seemed to be diplomatic, rather than military, and the army was used for support and sham wars.

He dug deeper. The Destroyers were used for transport, threats, and escorts. They were mostly for appearance’s sake, and would be largely ineffective in any serious engagement. Their minimal TIE fleets were only deployed for shows of strength and demonstrative dog fights that were assured victories. They had no dreadnoughts, so the turbolasers were mounted on the Destroyer fleet, and had never been fired, as far as he could see. He did not investigate the Trooper training. He knew what that would look like, as the planets that supplemented the basic techniques of their modern program weren’t even mapped, for the most part.

He went back over a decade, back nearly fifteen years, and things once again resembled his own memories. These were the types of missions that Ren would have assisted with. With no Ren, the more conservative call was made, and there was less territory as a result. The foothold shrank, as did their supplies and means. There were defeats too, of course, that did not happen when Ren went planetside with the Troopers.

Hux watched as the reality of the history and his memories narrowed, and finally intersected.

Just there. A year after his Officer’s Training ended, of course. Everything was the same before that. The same fleet, the same timeline. He remembered the diplomatic victories, the negotiated supply lines. He remembered when they finally opened the hyperlane to Hok-Derra. All of that was the same.

He scrolled back forward in time through the reports. All the evidence pointed to the same thing as the last version of the Order he'd seen. Everything was the same from the time before Ren joined the Order, and everything changed when he didn’t.

Hux put his comm on silent, then leaned his head in his hands.

 _Our lives are bound_.

The First Order was Hux’s. He grew up with it, and in turned nurtured it. Kylo Ren was important, but he wasn’t _essential_. He refused to believe his influence was this great, that Hux’s own influence could only engender these sad results.

 _Our lives are bound, and it was both of us together_.

The buzzing in his head was deafening, nearly a physical pain, and he felt a pounding behind his eyes as he brought his gaze back to the screen, to stare at a report of the first mission he'd planned and directed with Kylo Ren, on Rekalla.

His memory told him that Ren had ignored every order, pushing forward ahead of the unit with his Knights and taking the capitol building himself. He had executed the monarch and her family, and claimed the planet for the First Order.

He hadn’t even cared about it. Hux knew the battle to be a channel for Ren's rage, his… weakness, the fact he did not know what to do with himself without action. Afterwards, Hux had taken him into a private office and chastised him, shouted himself hoarse at the loss of Trooper life. Ren should have been defending them, not gone on his own bloody crusade.

Ren stayed silent, glaring insolently at Hux, and Hux had known the lesson was mostly lost on him. It wasn’t that Ren didn’t care about the Troopers - he did, he trained them himself. But Ren would do whatever he needed in the moment, whatever he liked. He was impulsive and dangerous. Hux had turned and left Ren, disgusted to realize that Ren would never willingly control himself. Ren had found him again later that night, as he always did. Because it was also Hux he liked, and he didn't need to control himself in their bed. Hux had cursed himself as weak.

The next day, they’d begun mining coferrio ore from that planet, which they’d used to trade with the Siniteen, who'd given them more processed plasma for weapons. Weapons that they had begun manufacturing immediately, and used to take other systems.

But not in this version of the Order. Here, they had approached Rekalla diplomatically, and had been rejected. The First Order had been stunted by that, to the point that even Hux had been forced to act with an increasing amount of caution. He saw it, in his own orders through the years. His frustration mounted as he observed his own slow pace, inactivity grinding down their actions to almost nothing. His own conservative use of the army. He hadn’t even been conservative in the simulations as a teen, when they’d had so much less. His boldness with what little they had was seen as reckless by many of the old Imperials, and revolutionary by those who were tired of hiding.

What was he to do now, with this information? Was Kylo Ren still out there, in a Hosnian Prime hospital that shouldn’t exist? Was he escaping, barefoot and shirtless, to wander Republic City alone because his visions stopped this morning? Was he looking for Hux at this very moment?

Ren had been right about that cave. The cave was somehow the reason for all this, though discerning why was more Ren’s area. Hux still couldn’t remember reaching the bottom, or what happened. But he had woken up again, and-

 _Our lives are bound_.

It didn’t matter. Hux didn’t want to bring Ren to the cave again. He didn’t ever want to see or think about Ventu again. He would recover him and bring Ren back to the First Order. The trip would be a simple thing now, not the massive waste of credits and time it had been last time. He wouldn’t even need Snoke’s permission. He could just take a leave, get in his own shuttle, and bring Ren back. He could keep Ren here, on the ship. There wasn’t any particular regulation against it. He’d simply enlist Ren under a fabricated name - or not, no one would know Kylo Ren - and claim that he was…

Hux groaned aloud, dropping his forehead to his desk, feeling frustrated. Ren would never pass as an officer in training. But they could make it work. Perhaps Ren only needed clearance to a few areas of the ship, could hide under Trooper armor. No one would notice him.

Snoke might. Snoke would find him, test his powers, find him lacking. And he would either kill Ren, or he wouldn’t.

And what if he did die at Snoke’s hands, weak and diminished without his physical or Force prowess?

 _Our lives are bound_.

It didn’t matter. Snoke wouldn’t sense him until he was stronger anyway. Hux would…

What? Keep him as a pet?

He didn’t need to explain himself, and no one would pry into his personal life. He could let Ren rest. Recover. Pursue his own avenues of training. Ren had said it wouldn’t take long to build himself back up. He had experienced it all through memories.

Hux pushed down his uncertainty, the voice that told him that this was a stupid risk, that the sleeping prince didn’t know his own limitations, and _what if Snoke found him_ -

He snapped back up to a full sitting position, clearing the screen and dismissing his doubts. This was a course of action. This was what he would do. He opened the highly restricted feed to the New Republic holonet, masked his intentions, and did another search for Ben Solo, just to confirm all the old information.

His eyes widened as years worth of articles he’d never seen before loaded onto his console. He scrolled, disbelief pushing all the worry and anxiety from his mind.

Ben Solo was the representative of Motavia. A Senator in his own right.

Hux loaded holo after holo of Ben Solo dressed in the rich ceremonial garb of the planet, colorful and slightly military. In one, he was wearing knee-high light brown boots with a slight heel that made him absolutely tower over the others with him. He was wearing tight rose-colored pants and a form-fitting rose-colored tunic cut high in the front that trailed longer in the back, trimmed in dark blue. It was clasped with double-breasted gold buttons, and he wore a high collar, a wide brown belt with an ornate gold buckle, and light brown gloves.  He was posed with several of the squat, beaked Motavians, who were some sort of peace-embracing race, wealthy and likely not in need of representation.

Hux snorted. Of course. Trying to picture Ren representing a planet to the Senate was… ridiculous? How would he act under the convoluted New Republic systems? What would happen when they decided against something he wanted? Ren was neither patient nor a graceful loser, and was dead last on Hux’s list of able diplomats.

As if to confirm this, Ben Solo’s list of sponsored legislation didn’t exist. He appeared to always vote with his mother, one of the heads of the Populist party. He often offered his own planet’s aid when others approached the Senate for help. Ben Solo had provided aid to several of the First Order planets that Hux had been using to scam supplies from the New Republic.

There was a lot of footage of Ben Solo shaking hands, Ben Solo standing around looking impressive. Hux noticed that he’d kept up his physical training. He looked enormous next to the diminutive avian race he represented, his outfits tailored to emphasize the size of him. His hair was always braided neatly for these ceremonial holos and Senate appearances, in a style Ren had only occasionally worn, but had always looked fetching on him. Hux also noticed that, when Ben Solo was smiling in these holos, the smile didn’t reach his eyes.

Hux smirked. Ren would loathe this kind of pageantry. He would be bored, especially if he was being forced to hold his tongue by his mother and was otherwise bound by propriety. Ren would never be happy in this life. Ren didn't even do things like this for Hux.

Scrolling through the documentation, Hux found another holovid of an annual celebration held on the surface of Motavia. Ren was always one of the celebration’s performers, and gave a demonstration of lightsaber technique. He did this shirtless, in a cavernous ring surrounded by holorecorders and the Motavians cheering him on.

Hux hated himself as he watched the holo over and over again. He watched strands of Ben Solo’s hair work their way free of his braids, he watched the sweat running down the cords of his neck and the declivity of his spine.

His body was free of the scars Hux knew so well, but this man was still Kylo Ren in all but name. Hux could see it. And Kylo Ren would come with him. He’d be powerful. He and Hux would be able to make real progress together.

Hux put in a notice for a week-long leave, then watched the holo again in the privacy of his own office.

 

* * *

 

He’d set his leave to start the next day, not at all interested in whatever random tasks he needed to complete or who needed to be informed. It didn’t matter. They would accomplish so much more once Ren came back. Hux knew the weaknesses he needed to target first, and Ren knew how to help him succeed. He worked up campaigns for the first three systems they needed to control, and strategies for how Ren could win them with their paltry army.

It would be such a pleasure to stop the sham wars and secure better supplies, along with more permanent ways to obtain them. He estimated that they would need five years to reach a place, technologically, where they could develop Starkiller again. That would open the doors to the rest of the galaxy. He would do it differently this time. He wouldn’t simply go through the motions of conquest. He would direct everything himself this time, actively changing the systems in place in the Core and Mid Rim worlds, opening up trade and supply lanes, using armed transports to keep everything safe.

Starkiller would be different, too. They would only need to eliminate the one planet. And he would give them a chance to evacuate. They would never believe that it could be destroyed remotely, so the New Republic government would likely stay to prevent panic. But Hux would make sure the broadcast went out to all the citizens. Perhaps others would be smart enough to leave.

Destroying a planet would make his point. And aggressive recruitment and training for a larger army would keep most threats and insurgencies at bay. It would work. It would be better.

Something pulled at his mind. Sitting in front of the Senate building to be reunited with Ren. All those ghosts on the surface, those people that shouldn’t exist. All those people that did exist years ago, when he’d met Ren the first time, and kissed him in that park. They were good memories, and Hux hated the truth of it, but he wasn’t so sentimental that he couldn’t destroy that place. He’d done it before.

He thought about the haunted ruin of Coruscant, and the waste of life there, the refugees that needed to be re-homed. How hungry they were. He pushed the thought away for the time being. Destroying Hosnian Prime was definitive, but it was also five years away. Tomorrow, he needed to recover Senator Ben Solo from Republic City. The poor Motavians would miss him at their festival the following week. Hux smirked at the thought.

He finished up the basic plans for Ren's return in his office and rode the transports back to his quarters. Unexpectedly, his comm chimed. Hux frowned and ignored it. He hadn’t been contacted about a single matter during the entire shift, either because nothing of significance happened or because Peavey was waging some sort of petty power struggle, Hux didn’t care. But he was officially off-duty, and didn’t want to deal with any paltry issues. Let Bariss and Peavey sort it out.

The comm chimed, again and again and again.

Typically, only Ren was so persistent. And if he were honest with himself, he had no other acquaintances that would be attempting to contact him in his off-hours, unless this version of himself was more social. He decidedly wasn’t, so he made a show of looking angry, which was lost on the completely empty transport. He rolled his eyes, then activated the comm. His stomach clenching when he realized who it was.

“Supreme Leader,” he acknowledged dully, as Snoke’s face projected from the holopad.

“General Hux. I see you have quietly arranged a vacation.”

Hux frowned, hating the implication of this. “Yes. There is a… personal errand I need to attend to.”

“Your leave is denied, General.”

Hux licked his lips and swallowed. It was not within Snoke’s purview to do such things, though admittedly, he’d never taken leave before. He proceeded carefully.

“I’d like to request clarification, Supreme Leader.”

“Those pirates are still at large, General. Your ship struggles to stop them.”

He clenched his jaw, but mostly kept the contempt from his face. Such a stupid errand. He could have them captured within three cycles.

“Very well, Supreme Leader. Once we have stopped the threat of the…” he paused, groping for the name. He’d wasted so little energy on this. “Loona pirates, I will take my leave immediately after.”

“No, General.” He smiled, in the way he had that let Hux know something unpleasant was about to happen. “You will stop those pirates, and then you will report to me at the Selor Citadel.”

Hux had trouble suppressing a grunt of annoyance. “As you command, Supreme Leader.”

He put the holo away, glancing around the transport. It had made a stop just after he’d activated the comm, and three junior officers, two majors, and a staff sargent were pretending to be engrossed in the blank gray walls of the transport.

Hux turned and did the same.

 

* * *

 

It took five days to stop the pirates. Five days wasted in this weak, reduced version of the First Order, and Hux felt every one of them. The interminable hours, the lack of resources, the way people had begun avoiding him for his foul moods and his inexplicable lack of answers to their questions. Hux was usually able to hide his temper when prudent, but his patience was wearing thin. He began to dread the hesitant confusion that followed his most reasonable instructions. It was difficult not to order the _Finalizer_  to navigate into the nearest sun and put them all out of their misery.

The pirates should have been simple. Hux knew exactly how to lay the trap, had designed all their strategies for stopping pirates and smugglers himself nearly a decade ago. But the fleet wasn’t large enough for those traps. They monitored all the shipping through the hyperlane for likely targets, but nothing had struck Hux as obvious bait. All the shipments were paltry, and these pirates were unpredictable. The pirates never seemed to hit the same types of freighters, never stole the same sorts of supplies, and didn’t always target First Order vessels. Hux carefully monitored a shipment of meat and protein to Aslo, only to find that the pirates had instead targeted the shipment containing First Order uniforms and other textiles.

Furious, he baited the trap himself while Colonel Bariss looked on, seething after Hux’s promise that she could eliminate the pirates herself. He ordered their only large freighter loaded with any tech worth stealing, then broadcast its contents and destination for nearly half a day before letting it embark.

“This is a little… extravagant, isn’t it, General?” Bariss asked, sarcasm dripping from her words. They were standing together in one of the empty aft hangars, monitoring the freighter as it left. They were apart from the minimal crew that was seeing her off. Hux looked up from the command console he was using, glaring at her.

“Any other strategies, Colonel? Perhaps you’d like to try sitting back and watching them steal from us a little longer? That was your plan, if I recall. How was that working for you?”

Her face twisted into something ugly for a moment before she leaned in close, speaking low so only Hux could hear.

“Armitage. What is wrong with you? Why are you suddenly so upset by this? They’re just pirates.”

Hux turned more fully to her, in utter disbelief that she would use his first name while on duty. “Kor,” he replied, speaking loudly, though no one was close enough to hear them, “I’m _upset_  because I shouldn’t have to bother myself with catching pirates. I’m _upset_  because it’s been _months_  of every commanding officer on this ship getting outsmarted by the same pirates. I’m _upset_  because we are _better than this_.”

He’d inadvertently shouted the last statement, and felt his face growing hot at the realization. They’d attracted the attention of the mechanics, who averted their gazes and looked busy on the other side of the hangar. Bariss stepped back, hands behind her back, and narrowed her eyes at Hux. She inclined her head, silent, obviously comfortable with letting him bear the brunt of the humiliation.

He let out a slow breath. He shouldn’t have lost his temper so publicly. Fortunately, if it got back to Snoke, he would assume Hux's mood was a result of his denied leave. Otherwise, Hux couldn’t find it in himself to feel bad about it. He stepped back from the console, moving closer to Bariss.

“This will stop them, Colonel, mark my words. And if a single thing about the capture, interrogation, or execution of these criminals goes even remotely awry, I will charge you and every officer involved in this project with gross dereliction of duty. Do I make myself clear?”

He leaned into her personal space, all but shouting into her face, not caring if the mechanics heard. Bariss didn’t bother to hide her contempt. She took a step backwards, maintaining eye contact.

“Understood, General.”

She turned and left without being dismissed, furious. Shouting her out of the hangar had calmed him, and he allowed himself a smirk as he turned back to the command console. He would have dismissed her hours ago, but he’d always taken satisfaction in rubbing Bariss’s nose in her mistakes.

The pirates took Hux’s bait, but nearly escaped with the freighter when their fleet turned out to be larger than Hux’s. He didn’t trust any of the other officers with the fleet maneuvers or strategy, so he had controlled the battle directly. It had been some time since Hux had done limited resource simulations, but he knew well enough how to outsmart pirates.

They won, but at the cost of twenty TIEs and the freighter. They did recover the freighter, but it was damaged beyond repair. All aboard, both pirates and the Trooper plants, had been killed when the shields had failed along with the power and life support.

He stood in the cavernous main starboard hangar on the _Finalizer_  and watched crews crawl over the charred hulk of the freighter, hauling what was left of the bodies away. The freighter would need to be scrapped. Droids were currently cutting holes in the hull to remove whatever could be salvaged from it. The noise of the cutting echoed overly loud in the empty, dark hangar, which held no TIEs or any other craft.

He felt Colonel Bariss’s angry gaze crawling over his back as he stood, letting the crews surge around him. Finally, he snapped, turning to her.

“The pirate command ship was captured intact. We apprehended the heads of the group.”

She had the gall to raise her lip and step closer, crossing her arms. “We don’t have another freighter to replace the one we lost.”

He offered his own sneer back. “We don’t have another crew for the freighter, either.”

“Hux. _Armitage_.” She dropped the volume of her voice again as she stepped closer, holding his gaze and keeping her arms crossed over her chest. “You…” Her expression softened, and the tension went out of her body language. “Are you okay?”

Hux’s eyes widened at her concern, and he took his own step back. “Are victories really so unusual that you need to ask after my well-being?”

Bariss sighed, rolling her eyes. “Don’t be a jackass. You haven’t been yourself for about a week. More… aggressive. _Stressed_.” She pronounced the last word with a particular emphasis that Hux did not appreciate. He opened his mouth to respond, and she put up a palm to stop him, stepping closer.

“You are never this strung out. And even when you are, you don’t show it. You aren’t being careful, and you’re wasting resources and lives to capture…” she gestured to the hangar, looking out the shielded bay, then back to Hux. “Pirates, Hux. You valued capturing those pirates over the lives of the Troopers. It’s reckless. And you’re not. You're careful.”

Hux opened his mouth, then closed it again. He was stuck on her assumption that a combined total of forty soldiers, twenty each of pilots and Troopers, had lost their lives, and this was somehow unacceptable in a mission that had taken nearly eight months.

While he struggled to respond, Bariss shook her head, and laid a gloved hand on his shoulder. He looked at it, even more shocked, then back into her face.

“I know you’re going to say something defensive and snappy, so skip it. You don’t have to explain yourself to me now. But I thought if I floated the idea, you might come to me later if you need someone to talk to.” She squeezed his shoulder, then dropped her hand. “I know you don’t like to open up, but everyone needs someone to drink with sometimes. And I’m not your enemy, I promise. We’re on the same side.”

Hux took one careful step back, and then another. He let his fury show on his face, and Bariss’s expression fell.

“Don’t touch me,” he hissed, grabbing at his shoulder in a way he knew was childish. “And don’t presume to be so familiar with me, Colonel. We are not _friends_. We will not _have drinks_. And I am sick of your pathetic attempts to pick at my weaknesses like a carrion creature.” He snorted, glowering at her. “We’re on the same side? Then why did it take eight months to catch a single group of pirates? It reeks of conspiracy, Colonel, and if I find evidence that you’re sabotaging the Order to defame me, you will see more of my aggression and recklessness than you'd perhaps care to. This insubordination stops now, Colonel. Am I understood?”

Bariss’s expression remained open, much to Hux’s surprise. It shifted between shock, confusion, and finally a kind of sullen anger before closing off again.

When she said nothing, Hux pressed. “Am I understood, Colonel?”

“Yes sir, General Hux.”

He shook his head and pushed past her, jostling her shoulder on the way.

That particular, very personal kind of insubordination from Bariss turned his stomach. He knew Bariss, knew perfectly well that she envied his position. But she had always buried that below a veneer of respect that Hux knew was genuine. Now, there was no respect, and this fake personal concern. She was using all this to undermine him, this routine where she called him ‘passive’ and ‘careful’ and played the friend, encouraging him down a path of weakness while the Order failed. She even knew him well enough to telegraph his reactions to what she was saying. It was infuriating.

Hux would not have let such a person anywhere near him, never have granted her the rank of Colonel. Even Bariss, who he knew better than almost anyone else in the Order.

He stopped in the middle of a main hallway, struck by the memory of her saying something similar the last time he had woken up without Ren. She had framed it similarly, that she was his friend and that there was something bothering him. He sneered. Apparently he didn’t know her as well as he thought.

He began striding down the hallway, more agitated this time, feeling his greatcoat pull behind him like Ren’s overly dramatic long tunic. Ren hated Bariss. They’d had more than one fight about her.

_After Bariss had left his office, he had turned to Ren, who had been glowering in the corner through the whole meeting. He had smirked, leaning back in the chair and resting his palms on the armrest._

_“Your magic powers seem quite good at divining when the Colonel will appear in my office for a meeting.”_

_Ren had crossed his arms, leaning back in the corner. Light from the biological plant had spilled in from the wall next to him, and an enormous purple leaf had been pressed to the other side of the viewport near his leg, cloudy condensation collecting on the transparisteel around it. “I told you not to be alone with her.”_

_“What am I supposed to do, Ren, comm you? And you’ll answer your comm and dutifully appear in my office as a bodyguard?”_

_Ren had said nothing, and hadn’t move from the corner. Hux had felt pressure, but no distinct emotion from Ren, which meant he had been guarding his thoughts. He had also left his helmet on to guard his expression. Hux had continued, enjoying it immensely._

_“And even if you were so diligent about my messages and safety, am I supposed to believe that Kor Bariss is a danger to me? Please. I’ve known her my entire life. Do you think she’s going to stab me in my office? She’s much more clever than that. This isn't where she would stab me.”_

_“You don’t know what I sense from her,” Ren had answered. “You shouldn’t be alone with her.”_

_“Oh?” Hux had affected a tone of mock curiosity, leaning further back in his office chair until it tipped on its rear legs. “What do you sense from her? This could be relevant to her career track, Ren. You know how I like to hear any information about disloyalty in my officers.”_

_Ren had remained silent, and Hux had realized that his smirk had slipped into a shit-eating grin. Ren had guarded his emotions well, but Hux had known full well Ren was reading his thoughts, and he had also known what Ren’s actual objection to Bariss was._

_Bariss was ambitious, Bariss was devious, but Hux knew how to handle Bariss. Bariss would never openly oppose him, but she would wait quietly for a weakness to strike._

_Ren’s actual objection had been that, when Hux and Bariss had been students together, Bariss had tried more than once to sleep with Hux. She had framed it as genuine attraction, had attempted to flatter him in all the right ways. Hux had seen it for what it was, which was an attempt to curry favor with a promising officer and the son of the General. Hux had kept her at arm’s length, but hadn’t dissuaded her attention. She had pressed harder, offered more blatantly to sleep with him, and when that hadn’t worked, had tried to appeal to his sense of duty by telling him that a partnership between the two of them was the smartest alliance either of them could make._

_She hadn’t been wrong, which was why Hux had allowed her attempts to last as long as they did. Hux may have considered her offers, had he not been so focused on bringing Ben Solo to the First Order. But Hux also hadn’t trusted her. She had stopped the more blatant advances after Hux turned her down firmly just before they’d graduated from the Officer’s Academy at the top of their class. Hux above Bariss, of course. But her small attempts to stay on his good side, to slip beneath Hux’s guard, had never really stopped, though he still trusted her to do her duty as an officer._

_Ren had hated her on sight, even without all this background information. Though Ren had never admitted it, Hux had taken this to mean that Bariss’s attempts to sleep with him had been more sincere than he’d believed._

_Hux had allowed himself to linger on this thought, imagining what Kor Bariss would be like in bed. Ren had shifted, and Hux had tipped forward in his chair, allowing all four legs to hit the floor._

_“Well. That would be one way to gain an ally, wouldn’t it?”_

_Ren had left, punching the door panel hard enough to crack the screen. Hux had huffed under his breath, amused despite Ren’s petty destruction._

_He had never slept with a woman in his life, and hadn’t believed his attempts to imagine Bariss in bed had been that creative. Ren, with his mind reading abilities, had certainly seen far more of that than Hux. Apparently the idea of it had been enough to get under his skin._

_Hux had considered for a moment, then pulled his sleeve back, activating his wrist comm._

_“Colonel. Would you return to my office? I’m afraid another small matter has come up that I’d like you to deal with.”_

_Hux had difficulty composing his face into his usual neutral expression, and had watched the door, wondering if Ren or Bariss would appear first._

_Hux certainly had no intentions toward Bariss. But there was no harm in tormenting Ren._

He enjoyed the game with Ren, and the Bariss he knew was none the wiser about it. She had also respected his rejection, and hadn’t offered him more than an occasional personal comment since. Hux did keep her at arm’s length, because she was sharp, and he had no doubt she would climb over him if he let her. But she never would have been so blatant at probing for weakness as cornering him to ask him how he felt. She wouldn’t have done that even when they were students.

But she’d done it twice now, once in both of the different First Orders. Her concern in this version of the Order rang particularly false in light of how pleased she had been about getting the pirate mission, and how angry and judgmental she’d been since Hux had taken it back.

Bariss’s friendly concern did not make a re-appearance in the following days, as Hux navigated the _Finalizer_ to Snoke's location. After their chat, he felt her disdain crawling all over him no matter where he was in the ship, and it infuriated him to know his second in command was judging his every decision, even in this pathetic excuse for his life’s work.

Sometimes, one of the old Imperials or some ambitious younger officer would relentlessly aggravate Hux to the point of being a professional hazard, or someone would threaten his life, either directly or indirectly. Such frustrations were vented with Ren, first by ordering him to fuck Hux into the mattress, then by a few well-placed whispers that always had Ren elsewhere on the ship the next day. He always returned smug, and wanting praise. They never spoke of these officer disappearances, but it satisfied something in both of them.

Instead of that, however, Hux had an empty bed. It was frustrating the first few nights, as Hux had no other outlet for his anger aside from exhausting himself with Ren.

By the eight day, it was intolerable. Ren was rarely away this long, and Hux was unaccustomed to sleeping by himself in his own bed, or having no one to speak to. It seemed like such a foolish thing to be upset about, but not having his usual outlets made all his bad moods worse, and made the buzzing dissonance in Hux’s head louder, until it was all he heard. He took every opportunity to isolate himself, where he could do nothing but plan how he would keep Ren while he recovered. The only other activity he could find to occupy himself was monitoring his sham wars. Those were depressing, and apparently he was right about the way they worked. He watched as the supplies from the New Republic made their way out through their trade networks.

Other than that, there was nothing. No Trooper training to observe, no conflicts or uprisings or diplomatic missions to follow. Nothing but sitting on the bridge and micro-managing the day-to-day tasks of the other officers, Bariss sulking and undermining him in small ways.

This hostile version of Bariss was making him reconsider Ren's opinion. He was loathe to remove Bariss, did not want to believe she was actually a danger to him. Still, Hux was far from the only officer in the Order who quietly removed his rivals, and he’d suspected Bariss of it at least once. If she was capable of it then, she was certainly capable of it now, and her value as an officer wasn’t worth the headache of watching his back until he retrieved Ren.

On the other hand, Ren had also attempted his own version of bedroom whispers, begging for permission to remove Bariss. Previously, his concerns about her plotting were fabricated, though they’d always amused Hux. Perhaps he hadn’t made all of it up. Ren could deal with Bariss when he returned.

With that decided, Hux watched his back, and told himself Bariss’s disdain was beneath his notice.

On the last day before they reached Snoke, he summoned the pirate prisoners to a large meeting room in the central deck. The room had long transparisteel walls that looked down on a manufacturing unit that was constantly fabricating ground transport, AT-ATs, landspeeders, and assault tanks. The walls were currently completely black, the overhead lights reflecting clearly in their surfaces. The plant was dark, the records showing that nothing had ever been manufactured there.

Hux had summoned a half dozen officers and a unit of Stormtroopers to the meeting room as a visible show of force. He stood at attention, hands behind his back as the four pirate leaders were marched in, two Quarren and two Weequay. He turned to Bariss, who silently seethed beside him.

“Colonel, have the prisoners been questioned?”

“Yes, General,” she gritted out, and Hux could not begrudge her the annoyance. This was an unnecessary bit of pageantry, but it wasn’t as if anyone in the room had more urgent business to attend to.

He took a step forward, giving the gray-skinned Quarren his best icy stare. The Quarren had tiny black eyes in an overly-large bulbous head. It lacked ears and a nose, and it had several tentacles that obscured its mouth. “And why were you poaching from our hyperspace lane, exactly?”

“Since when is it yours?” The Quarren bubbled out in a choked form of Basic that was difficult to understand.

“It was mine after I claimed it,” Hux answered simply, his eyes shifting over to the smaller red-skinned Quarren next to it. This one was wearing shorts and a torn tunic, a long gash visible on its exposed shoulder. It stared at Hux with a hatred that was recognizable even on its foreign features.

“You,” he singled it out. “How long did you think you could keep running your scheme?”

“Until we bankrupted you,” this one grit out, much more clearly and simply.

Hux sighed, drew his blaster, and shot the red-skinned Quarren through the head. He had the pleasure of watching the other Quarren and both Weequay jump, all three looking to the fallen Quarren with unreadable expressions.

He turned his head to speak over his shoulder, lowering the gun to his side. “Colonel Bariss, do we have any more use for these?”

She shifted, and Hux saw that the execution had thrown her off-balance. He was surprised, not only in the crack in her usual expressionless mask, but also because this kind of open casual violence was taught in the academies. Even if they had few opportunities for it in this version of the Order, Bariss was well-acquainted with it from their shared past.

She regained her equilibrium quickly, her expression smoothing as her gaze moved from the dead Quarren to Hux. “Of course we still need them, General,” she managed to say, still sounding surly. “We need to know where they were taking our supplies.”

Hux turned around more fully, a pain pressing behind his eyes, different than the ringing dissonance he felt whenever reality disagreed with his memories. This was incompetence, plain and simple, on a level that he did not think Bariss capable of.

“I see,” he said, knowing his back was to the kneeling prisoners and a dozen Stormtroopers who were standing, rifles drawn, in a half-circle behind them. He was flanked on either side by other officers, who stood at attention, awaiting Hux’s orders. Every single one of the officers and troopers would obey him unquestioningly. He knew exactly what he looked like. He brought his blaster up to his waist and began running a gloved index finger up and down the barrel, not breaking eye contact with Bariss. To her credit, she paled, but did not look away.

“Why was that not part of the initial questioning?”

“We were asking other questions first,” she snapped, her posture tensing.

“Such as? Why they did it?”

“You asked the same thing yourself, General.”

“ _Colonel_ , perhaps you failed to realize that this is not a formal interrogation.” He paused, lowering the blaster to his side again, still not breaking eye contact. He could see her wilting now, beginning to panic. “During a formal interrogation, it’s standard procedures to ask questions that have a _point_. Were you asking them for their life stories?”

“No, I-”

“Then perhaps you were asking them who they stole their ship from?”

“No, we- We didn’t get that far before you called them up here!” she accused, taking a step back. She still had the loathing in her eyes, not seeing, not understanding. Hux took another step forward.

“How long were they in interrogation, Colonel?”

“Three days.”

“And how long were you tracking them before that?”

She didn’t answer, so Hux repeated himself, louder, more like an order.

“ _How long_ , Colonel Bariss?”

“Eight standard months.”

“Excuse me, I didn’t quite understand you. Were you speaking to me?” He took another dangerous step forward. She took another back.

“Eight standard months, _General_.”

Hux could feel his control slip, the volume of his voice growing louder. He was losing control more often, should really try to check himself. But this. This was too much.

“Eight standard months to catch a single ship of pirates. Two days to ask them _where they took our supplies_. If I didn’t know better, I would say you were deliberately sabotaging this mission, _Colonel_.”

Bariss took another step back, rolling her eyes. “Please Armitage, you know-”

"Arrest her," he said, raising his blaster and pointing it at her, barely able to suppress the urge to shoot her through the head. Her expressionless mask fell away, and her reaction was a mix of shock and fury.

"On what grounds?" she demanded, stepping back further.

"Treason. Insubordination." He kept his blaster trained on her as two Stormtroopers stepped from behind him and grabbed her.  She yanked her arm free, her hand dropping to her blaster. Hux shot her then. She fell to the floor, the only sound the _thud_ of her body on the deck. The Stormtroopers barely paused, simply crouched and picked her up beneath her shoulders and legs, carrying her silently from the room.

He hadn't aimed, not really. But as he holstered his weapon, he found he couldn't bring himself to check where the blaster shot had landed, and whether it had killed her. Suddenly, he found he couldn't stand knowing that. 

 

Without looking at the others in the room, he turned back to the pirates, raising his blaster at one of the Weequay.

“Where were you taking the supplies.” It wasn’t a question this time, and he could hear the hard anger in his voice.

“Morrika,” the Weequay answered simply, shrugging. “We were selling them to the Jory Boys.”

He turned his blaster on the other Weequay, who struggled against the magni-cuffs it was wearing. “It’s true! Sometimes we took them to Jerrika, to the Nesset faction, but they didn’t pay as well. They liked textiles, though.”

He turned his blaster on the Quarren, who was silent. Hux shot it, then holstered his weapon.

“Major Kerrik,” he barked without turning around. “See the prisoners escorted back to the holding cells.”

“Yes, General.”

Hux was looking at the prisoners. “If the information isn’t good, you’ll wish it was as easy as what you saw today. Do you understand?”

Both Weequay nodded, and Hux strode out of the room without bothering to arrange investigations for any of it. He really should have, under the circumstances. The circumstances being that an interrogation lasted three days without anyone thinking to ask the pirates where the supplies had gone. He’d made it clear enough what his expectations were going forward, though.

Ren would have asked. He wouldn’t have seen to it personally, but he would have checked in after the first interrogation session and seen it done.

Hux’s mind boggled as to how the interrogation could have gone _so wrong_. Ren didn’t teach interrogation techniques, everything that Hux had done were basics that were taught to all cadets, both officers and troopers. They were incredibly effective, and had been standard procedure since Hux was a boy. Had they really gone _backwards_?

Bariss had lived, but the charges would stick, and she would be executed within a standard week, so it ultimately didn't matter whether Hux had killed her himself. He might as well have, as she would die at his order anyway. No gossip reached Hux the rest of the day, and the looks the other officers gave him didn’t change. Peavey didn’t react when Hux told him he was the new second, simply acknowledged the new responsibility expressionlessly.

Hux hadn’t bothered to check the location of the coordinates to Snoke’s citadel, but was shocked to learn that Selor was a ground-based operation in the Mid Rim. Both the Mid Rim location and the fact that a major asset for the Order was planetside were against standard operating procedure. Everything in the Order was meant to be mobile to decrease the chance of discovery. But Snoke was on some mining planet in the Mid Rim, right next to the Hydian Way, the longest and most heavily trafficked hyperspace route in the galaxy. Snoke's Selor operations traded ore with Mid and Outer Rim planets, because of course they did. That wasn’t conspicuous at all.

The next day, Hux had to make a serious attempt to keep his expression neutral as he disembarked the transport inside a massive glass dome on the planet’s surface. There was nothing but a howling red-gray dust storm visible through the transparisteel. This was the facility where Snoke… stayed. Lived. He certainly didn’t _run the Order_  from here.

Selor was a desert, the constant dust storms blowing up clouds of hazy red that kept the surface in a kind of perpetual twilight. Hux had noticed several domed facilities mapped on the surface where the staff both lived and worked, as the domes contained both accommodations and access to the tunnels leading to the drilling that went on below ground.

He shook his head, striding across to the subterranean transport that led to Snoke as he considered Selor. All of this was a waste. Labor had to be imported. Supplies to keep the labor alive had to be imported. Why were they doing this themselves? They kept territories to do this for them, sustainable operations that already existed. This was a massive resource sink, and as far as Hux could tell, it was a wash. The arguable benefit was some sort of quid pro quo that was tied into trading ore with the nearby Mid Rim systems. Those planets had yet to do them any favors.

But none of that was useful right now. Seated on the transport, he took a breath in and held it, dismissing his agitation before approaching Snoke. Ren had assured him that Snoke had only a vague sense of his emotions, and could not casually read his thoughts directly, as Ren could. That kind of connection required intimacy that Hux and Snoke did not share. Hux had refused to speak to Ren for three days after he had introduced that mental image.

Still. Snoke always seemed able to read Ren, and Hux couldn’t help feeling like Snoke saw straight through him. Hux didn’t consider himself unknowable. He all but controlled the First Order himself, and his priority was pushing it forward, extending its reach to the central part of the galaxy and further into the uncharted areas of Wild Space. Everything he did was in aid of that. It was no secret.

But he did not need to broadcast how useless he believed Snoke to be, nor how much he loathed the hold that he had on Ren. Hux had a healthy sense of self-preservation.

He stepped into Snoke’s personal chamber, still a dim room done in the same tacky red with his squad of unnecessary guards flanking him. Hux clenched his fists as he took a knee and inclined his head in the proper way.

“Supreme Leader.”

“General Hux. Smart of you to bring your _Resurgent_ -class Star Destroyer to this highly visible location.”

Hux controlled his sneer, as well as the response that sprang to mind immediately. _Smart of you to be in such a highly visible location, Supreme Leader_.

“The timing was convenient. There is a large ore shipment ready to leave the planet, and the large freighter is currently unavailable.”

“What happened to it?”

Hux clenched his fists hard enough to make the leather creak. He was sure Snoke knew.

“It was sacrificed in order to capture and execute the pirates that had been harrying us for so long.” He raised his head, daring to meet Snoke’s eyes. “Perhaps our allies receiving the ore will provide another.”

He wondered if whatever version of himself lived this life was appropriately critical of these 'allies.' Hux couldn’t tell by Snoke’s non-reaction whether the subject had been broached before.

“Such ships are not granted as _favors_ , General. They are earned, and are treasured as strategically important.”

“If they are our allies, Supreme Leader, would it not be in their best interest to provide us with a ship to transport their ore?”

“Why would they, when you show up in the fleet’s newest Star Destroyer?”

“Because I could easily use the turbolasers to persuade them that agreeing to our requests is _strategically important_.”

Snoke laughed, leaning back in his chair.

“Such _contempt_ , General. Where’s your mask of civility? Was it destroyed along with your last freighter?”

Hux nearly stood and walked out, but crushed the impulse. He could deal with Snoke when he returned with Kylo Ren, who was allegedly a fully trained Jedi as well as a Senator.

“Why am I here, Supreme Leader, and not on my scheduled leave?”

“Straight to the point. Why are you taking a vacation, Armitage Hux?”

Hux couldn’t help the twitch across his features at hearing Snoke speak his first name. He was one of the few who used it since Brendol had died and Hux had been promoted to General. The familiarity of Snoke using it always made his skin crawl.

Hux easily regurgitated the excuse he’d concocted, which had enough truth to it that Snoke wouldn’t catch him in a lie.

“I found that I’m losing focus and growing frustrated with the tasks in front of me. I wish to clear my mind and set my priorities in order.” He paused, his brow lowering, not quite able to keep the frustration from showing. “And I’ve never taken a leave before. I assumed I was owed.”

“You are owed nothing,” Snoke returned, shifting one leg atop the other under his gold robe. “But… Yes, I can sense… your lack of focus. You have another goal in mind, something that’s burning bright and clear. You called it a ‘personal errand.’ That’s a lie. You don’t have a personal life, General.”

His eyes narrowed and shifted briefly to the Praetorian guards, then back. Snoke wasn’t wrong. Still.

“Do you sense a lie, Supreme Leader?” He held his hands in front of him, palm up, in a submissive gesture.

Snoke studied him for a moment before answering. “Don’t assume for a second I’ll play this game with you, General,” he snarled, his face twisting into something ugly. “Tell me why you’re leaving the First Order for the first time in your life. There is a _reason_. I’m not stupid.” He leaned forward. “And I’ll simply take it if you insist on drawing this out a moment longer.”

Hux inhaled, the cold air of the chamber burning the inside of his nostrils. His eyes didn’t leave Snoke’s. He knew this had to be both convincing and true. He clenched his hands over his knee and thinned his lips before letting the words come out of his mouth.

“I’m meeting my partner and bringing him back to the First Order.”

“Your partner,” Snoke stated flatly. “A sex partner? You don’t have sex.”

He had said something similar the last time Hux spoke to him, but the insult still hit home. It not only implied that Snoke watched him far more carefully than he would have liked, but the way Snoke said it made it sound as if the fact made Hux much less interesting.

Another part of Hux twisted tight, unsure how he felt about reaching the age of thirty-four completely uninterested in sex with anyone but Kylo Ren. Surely that was a weakness of some kind.

“A sex partner, yes,” Hux gritted out.

“And how did you meet this sex partner?” Snoke leaned back, the tone of his voice suggesting disbelief.

The conversation was unraveling, and Hux was about to experience something unpleasant. An explanation did not readily come to him, and when he knelt with his mouth open a beat too long, Snoke leaned forward again and held out a palm, casually tearing into Hux’s mind.

The pain was excruciating, everything that Ren’s victims promised and more. He fell forward from his kneeling position to his hands and knees, biting his tongue to keep from giving Snoke the pleasure of hearing him cry out. After a moment, he hit the floor on his stomach, tasting blood in his mouth.

He lost consciousness. When he came back to himself, it was to the taste of blood in his mouth, a splitting pain in his head strong enough to drown out the incessant buzzing, and Snoke’s laughter.

He pushed himself off the floor, then collapsed again, the effort too much. He felt warmth against his cheek, rolling his head to the side and swiping a glove to see if it was saliva or blood. Blood. He wiped at his lips, feeling more slickness than he’d like. His hair was in his face. He gave up assessing his appearance and closed his eyes, resigning himself to laying facedown on the floor, humiliated.

“ _General_ , I knew you had a high opinion of yourself, but _Ben Solo_?” Snoke asked between bouts of laughter, voice deep and mocking.

Hux rolled his head forward, his chin resting on the ground, and simply stared at the Supreme Leader. Snoke reclined back in his chair, still chuckling to himself. He waved Hux off dismissively, shaking his head in a parody of affability.

“And here I was worried you’d been scheming with some powerful ally to stab me in the back. Your… rather extensive sexual fantasies about Ben Solo dressed as some sort of Darth Vader parody were not what I was expecting.” Snoke chuckled, shaking his head again.

Hux managed to push himself up to a sitting position, but did not trust himself to stand. He’d dropped his eyes to the floor, but could not keep the expression of humiliated contempt off his face. He pushed his hair back and licked at the blood on his lips, trying to ignore Snoke’s mocking laughter.

“Take your vacation, General. Report here when you return. I want to know _all about_  how Ben Solo would not give you the time of day. It’s important First Order business.”

Hux closed his eyes and held his breath, pushing himself off the floor and feeling his muscles scream as he forced his body to stand. He didn’t want to be in the chamber a moment longer, but he also didn’t want to crawl out on his hands and knees like a beaten canid. His legs held him, so he opened his eyes and stumbled out of the room, slamming his fist into the control panel as he left, hearing Snoke’s laughter ringing out behind him as the doors slid shut.

When the door locks snapped into place he slumped against the wall and vomited into his lap, giving up the struggle with his body and mind and losing consciousness once again.

When he woke later, he was still slumped in the hallway by himself. He stared at the wall, unable to process the depths of the complete and total humiliation he’d just experienced, nor the ways it was currently affecting him. After several moments, the only thought that had formed clearly in his mind was that he couldn’t let anyone see him like this.

He summoned the energy to activate his wrist comm and order a droid transport to carry him back to the ship. He would board his personal shuttle immediately, taking whatever meds and rest he needed on the way to Ren.

He desperately wanted to return with Ben Solo. The first thing they’d do together was execute Snoke.

He imagined Bariss again, and closed his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Snoke pushes into Hux's mind against his will, very violently and painfully, and ultimately humiliates Hux with his own thoughts in a very charming kick-him-when-he's-down moment. You'll see it coming a mile away and can just stop reading. It's at the very very end of the chapter.


	8. Part Two: Yonec - Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place just after chapter five. Also updated to include the flashback note in the chapter itself. Hopefully it’s less confusing now!

**Fourteen Years Ago...**

 

 

“ _Ben_.”

Hux woke suddenly, disoriented and badly off-guard. He was naked, swimming in blankets in a strange, soft bed that smelled bad. _He_  smelled bad. His head hurt, his body hurt, his ass hurt _badly_ , and he had to resist clamping a hand over it. The room was lit strangely, not the dark of overnight and not the dim light of the dormitory waking cycle. There was someone in the room with him, speaking, saying some name. His hand shot out for his blaster. The bed was enormous, he couldn’t reach his weapon. His other hand went under the pillow, closing on nothing where his monomolecular blade should be.

At that, he opened his eyes. There was someone standing at the foot of the bed. He recognized the looming form of Luke Skywalker immediately, his profile lit by the weak ambient light coming through the window of the room.

“What the fuck-”

“Uncle Luke-”

He jumped, realizing there was someone in the disgusting bed with him. The dimly-lit profile of Ben Solo hardly seemed more likely, and he looked between the two of them for a moment before his thoughts caught up and he suddenly remembered _everything_. With Luke Skywalker's judgmental gaze on him, he desperately wanted to disappear through a hole in the floor, where the Hero of the Rebellion wouldn’t see Hux naked in his nephew's soiled bed.

Skywalker, ignoring their simultaneous protests, calmly turned to the service tray by the door, which contained the remnants of the room service they had ordered last night  - a bottle of carbonated water and a noodle dish with a thick creamy sauce, as selected by Ben. Neither had wanted to leave the room, so they had eaten while perched at the foot of the bed, completely naked. Hux had been both horrified and thrilled by the forbidden decadence, both the expensive meal and the fact he was eating in a bedroom at all. The rich food had upset Hux’s stomach, but he had been too exhausted to do anything about it. After, he’d given Ben his promised blowjob (Ben hadn’t lasted a full minute) and they had both fallen asleep, Hux’s stomach and ass both protesting his activities for the day.

Skywaker examined the large glass decanter that had held the water, then turned an admonishing stare back to Ben. “We brought our own food with us so we wouldn't have to waste your mother's credits on expensive room service, Ben.”

Privately, Hux agreed with Skywalker about the waste, but this hardly seemed the time to say so.

“It’s- It was just _dinner_ , Uncle Luke! I didn’t want to take the rations away from you and Nella, we didn’t bring enough for another person. I told you I was-”

Skywalker’s very blue, very cold gaze turned to Hux, and Hux recoiled, pulling the blankets over his exposed chest. Gone was the boyish smile for the Senate audience from yesterday, the good nature. This was the man who had killed over a million people with a single ‘Force assisted’ shot at the first Death Star. He’d killed Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine. The thought of him standing at the foot of Hux’s bed made him shiver. Hux didn’t consider himself easily intimidated by shows of power. But this was no show of power. Skywalker was simply a dangerous individual, and Hux respected it.

“You told me. And I’m disappointed. You know you can’t afford distractions like this.” He looked again to Ben and waited patiently for his reply.

“What time is it,” Hux broke in, suddenly more humiliated on Ben’s behalf. Both of them turned to look at Hux, as if he didn’t have a place in this conversation. He didn’t, but this was horrifying.

Skywalker looked at Ben again, crossing his arms over his chest. He was wearing his tattered beige Jedi robes, a set that was more well-used than what he’d been wearing the previous day. His hair was more tousled. While his tone was gentle, there was something long-suffering in it that brokered no argument. Hux wondered what it was like to live with and be raised by such a man. A legend. What it would be like to come up lacking.

“It’s long past time to start your morning meditation, Ben.” He looked back to Hux. “And for your friend to go home.” When Ben didn’t reply, Skywalker sighed, as if he was being extremely patient with a slow student. Perhaps he was. Hux’s ire rose again. “Okay. I can sense that you aren’t in a place to mediate this morning. Will you be settled by the time the demonstration starts?”

By this time, Hux had pulled his small datapad from the bedside table, examining it before speaking to Skywalker again. “It’s ten after four in the morning. The demonstration isn’t set to start for another _five hours_.”

Skywalker turned and gave him another steady, cold look that seemed to pass right through him. “Your friend will be attending.”

“Yes,” Hux replied, though Skywalker hadn’t phrased it as a question, and hadn’t actually been speaking to him. Just about him, while standing at the foot of his bed. Was this what New Republic families were like? Perhaps Luke Skywalker simply had high standards.

“Ben will need all that time to center himself before the exercises.” Skywalker turned back to Ben. “An afternoon and an evening is one thing. But you know how important these demonstrations are, Ben. I thought you took these duties more seriously.”

“I do! I am taking them seriously. We were up late, and I slept in. Hux is right, I have five hours to get ready.” Ben looked defiantly at Skywalker, and Hux saw his mood crashing again, that temper threatening to come to the surface. He could feel the edges of it lapping at his mind through the remnants of whatever connection Ben had established last night, could feel the pressure of it against his skin. It was intoxicating, still.

He imagined that Skywalker could sense it too, and he could see Skywalker’s shoulders sag. “Fine, Ben. I trust you to be prepared for the lightsaber demonstration when the time comes. I’ll leave you until then.”

His unnerving gaze went to Hux one last time, then he left the room, closing the door behind him.

“What the fuck,” Hux hissed, turning to Ben, who was staring down into his lap, face red. Hux felt overwhelming humiliation, but couldn’t actually tell if it was the pressure of Ben’s thoughts again, or simply his own. Ben’s anger had abated as soon as Skywalker had left the room. “ _Why_  did your uncle appear in your room at four in the fucking morning?”

“I didn’t show up for morning meditation,” Ben muttered, twisting the sheets in his fingers.

“What time is morning meditation?”

“At four exactly at the Academy on Hab-118. Hosnian Prime has the same rotation cycle, so we use local time here, too.” Ben looked at him, his face somehow both sullen and anxious. “I’ve never missed it before.”

Hux sighed, dragging his fingers through his hair and looking at the closed door. “Why do you let your uncle speak to you like that?”

It was the first thing he could think of, after trying to pin down exactly why he hated the exchange. There were several reasons, but that was the worst one. He couldn’t even imagine his father doing this, or any of his supervisors over the years. Even at the Cadet academies, no supervisors had entered the student dormitories. There was no need. Med-droids were sent in when there were health issues. They used student monitors as necessary for new recruits that struggled with routine. Otherwise… there was no reason to enter the rooms. He’d always been told the New Republic was too permissive, but this seemed like the opposite.

Ben shrugged, still not looking at him. “I need guidance and structure to my day. I get frustrated without it. It’s something we worked out a long time ago. Uncle Luke was angry because I wasn’t at morning meditation, which is part of that. Like I said, I’ve never missed it before.”

Hux continued to study him. “But you said you’re terrible at meditation.”

“I still do it. I need to get better.” He raised his head to look at Hux, his profile lit by the artificial light coming in through the window. It gave Ben’s skin an unpleasant bluish tint. There was so much light, even before the sun rose. Hux couldn’t believe they left outdoor lighting on all night.

“If you’ve been doing it every day since you were five, and you still aren’t good at it, why don’t you work on a different skill?”

“I need to settle my mind. I told you, I… get angry. Frustrated. Lose my temper. I disagree with the others. I have a preoccupation with the physical, with conflict. I need to purge myself of it. Routine helps. Structure to my day. Uncle Luke sets everything up for me.”  Ben explained all this with a flat, rote quality to his voice that suggested he was repeating something he'd been told.

Hux stared at the door. “I could understand if you were required to do this as part of a role, or task. But you’re not being trained to do anything practical. They don’t seem to be utilizing you or the other Jedi students for anything. You aren’t being paid to do this. The morning meditation… it has no point. I don't understand that.” He turned back to Ben, finally able to articulate why this had upset him so much. “Surely you can structure your own day. Why does your uncle still treat you like a child? You’ve been a legal adult for at least two years.”

It was the violation of privacy, the intrusion on personal time, that so offended Hux. Not even Troopers were subjected like this, and their time was highly regulated.

Ben sighed, running both his own hands through his hair. “I'm a Jedi. That's my job. This is it.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, pulling on his hair in frustration, and Hux crawled across the bed, straddling his hips, letting the sheet fall off him and exposing his back to the cold room. “Why, though.” He pulled Ben’s hands out of his hair, and Ben looked up at him. “If you’re preoccupied with being angry, don’t things like this make you even angrier?”

Ben shook his head. “They shouldn’t. Uncle Luke’s just trying to correct me. I deserve it.”

“You don’t. You should be allowed privacy in your own rooms.”

“That’s not an issue, it’s just… this time…” Ben dropped his eyes, and Hux cupped his chin, raising his head up forcefully.

“You’re allowed to enjoy sex, if that’s what you want.”

Ben shook his head again, though Hux kept a grip on his chin. “My uncle’s right. It’s a distraction for me, and I already have trouble concentrating.”

“And what are you concentrating on?”

“Being a better Jedi.”

“Why?”

Ben narrowed his eyes and did not reply, the anger flitting across his face answer enough. Hux stared down at him for a few more moments, then rolled off and away, swearing under his breath and positioning his back to Ben, but pushing against his side. Hux was not accustomed to getting up for another two hours, however the starship schedules aligned with the day cycle on Hosnian Prime. He decided he would sleep, if nothing else, and try again with Ben under less fraught circumstances.

After a few moments, Ben rolled over, and one of his big arms wrapped around Hux, his face pressing between Hux’s shoulderblades.

 

* * *

 

Several minutes before the demonstration was scheduled to begin, Hux found himself sitting smugly at the front and center of the semicircular seating area, just at the foot of the stage. The event had drawn more than one thousand spectators, all of whom were slowly and noisily filing in behind Hux.

They had woken late and purchased breakfast (something sensible, as Hux’s stomach still ached from the dinner foods), and Ben had been much calmer as they ate. They hadn’t spoken of Ben’s career as a Jedi. He’d laughed when Hux had found the citrus drink they served with breakfast abominable, and they’d given each other blowjobs, Ben choking on Hux’s dick rather neatly and almost vomiting his breakfast back into Hux’s lap.

Ben had put on a pair of loose-fitting pants and the neater, whiter ceremonial robe he used for these demonstrations, and Hux had worn Ben's old robes, as his uniform was both too conspicuous and too soiled. The robes were too big, the material was irritating his skin, and they smelled like Ben and outdoors and sex. Ben had dressed him himself after insisting, angrily, that Hux didn't know how to wear the robes. It had been annoying and insulting, but Ben had been adamant. Hux had to admit that the tunics wrapped in an unusual way, and the ritual seemed to calm Ben. Ben’s hands had been careful as he wrapped Hux in the itchy fabric, tucking everything into place, tightening as needed. There was nothing to do about Hux’s military boots, but the loose-fitting pants mostly covered them. Ben had finished the dressing ritual looking calm and satisfied, seeming to have found the peace his uncle had accused him of lacking. Hux had kissed him then, off and on, as Ben got ready, as they neatened each other's appearance, cleaned each other up.

The intimacy was bizarre, and should have felt out of place or performative, but didn't. There was something very natural about it, despite the fact that Hux had never done anything like this before. He told himself it was a show for Ben’s benefit. But it wasn’t that, not really.

Hux appreciated Ben’s robes more when he was out among the press of New Republic citizens - he felt much less conspicuous in Ben’s loose-fitting, light-colored robes than he had in his uniform. And he liked the way he and Ben looked together, as there was no other beings dressed quite like the Jedi.

He and Ben had continued to chat as they moved out into the busy Republic City walkways, transitioning after several minutes to a private lift, one of many in the speeder traffic above the city. Ben asked Hux what kind of combat training he had, and Hux had dodged neatly around the majority of it - mostly strategic, some blaster training, some hand to hand. He promised Ben they could spar later, though Hux imagined the session being physical in a different way. His ass still ached, but he’d hoped Ben could do his mind trick again. His thoughts buzzed faintly with what he assumed was Ben’s continued presence, though he couldn’t sense thoughts or words from Ben, and wondered if Ben could still sense him.

“Can you?” Hux asked abruptly, interrupting Ben in the middle of a lengthy explanation of his saber forms that was mostly lost on Hux. Ben blinked at him slowly, obviously not understanding the question.

“Can I… show you?”

“Your saber. No. I'll see that soon. I meant, can you still read my thoughts?”

“Oh.” Ben tilted his head, and Hux could tell by his expression that he was about to conceal that he could. “No. Only when we’re close. I would be distracted if I could sense it all the time.”

“Why would you lie about that?”

Ben recoiled, and his expression darkened. The tickle at the edge of Hux’s thoughts turned into a push. “Is the connection that open?”

“No. Your facial expressions are telling. Too telling. Fix that.”

Ben scowled. “I-”

“You’re angry with me, because no one has ever told you that before. You’re going to deny it. You think that no one looks at your face. You think you hide everything inside and do as you’re told.”

Ben scoffed, looking more skeptical. “Ha. You're the only person who's ever thought I do as I'm told.”

Hux smirked, but quickly schooled his features. “Why did you lie about it?”

Ben turned and looked out the window of the lift. “Uncle Luke is right that I’m bad at… distractions. Focus. I should pull back from you. It will be hard when I have to.”

“I’m not as bothered by you reading my thoughts as I should be, Ben. I would have found it repellent even a week ago. You can do as you like.” This was strategically important, getting Ben to be closer to him, but he found that it was also the truth. He frowned at himself, surprised.

“I didn’t ask you.” Ben turned and smirked at Hux, then looked back out the window. “But I’ll still have to stop sometime. Soon. Just not now.”

Inside his head, Hux heard _It’s the only thing I’ve ever been good at_.

Hux willed himself not to be angry at Ben for handing him that particular gift-wrapped vulnerability, nor the obvious invitation to complement him. Hux shifted, looking out his own window. “I’m looking forward to your saber demonstration. You know that.”

 _That has nothing to do with the Force_.

Hux had no empty praise or promises for Ben, so they sat in an increasingly awkward silence until they both got out, grim-faced, near the Senate complex. Hux had planned on asking to see Ben’s lightsaber before the demonstration, but could tell Ben was in no mood for it. So Hux had held his tongue and worried more and more that Ben would tell him to fuck off after the demonstration. They’d walked side by side to the performance area, which was on the other side of the massive park, in the opposite direction from the bench they had sat at the day before.

When they’d reached the gate to the elevated stage, Hux had nearly shouted at the guard, not understanding that he’d needed to purchase a ticket in advance. He’d turned to Ben, furious and hopeless, fully expecting Ben Solo to send him away after his grim silences and his talk of distractions.

Instead, Ben had given him a half smile and mind-tricked the guard into letting Hux through. Before they separated, Ben moving toward the rear of the stage, he'd given Hux a furtive kiss on the lips and told him to go to the front of the seating area. When Hux had reached the front row, another guard had shown him to his current seat. It was a fantastic view, and it was clear that those around him were wealthy patrons of whatever New Republic cause this performance was in aid of. The humans and humanoids were all older, wearing garish amounts of jewelry and bright colors.

To his right, Hux vaguely recognized one of the Senator’s aides he’d spotted in the crowd yesterday, a blue-skinned humanoid alien with an elaborate facial tattoo and complicated, colorful robes that covered every inch of skin save their face. They were sitting with two smaller blue-skinned aliens that Hux presumed were restless offspring.

To his left sat a pair of Bothans of indeterminate age, both with long, silky hair covering the exposed parts of their bodies and faces. They were wearing simple white sleeveless robes. They were also wearing copious amounts of silver jewelry - rings through their noses and ears, necklaces, bracelets that were set with sparse, colorful stones that glinted obnoxiously in the Hosnian sunlight. Hux found such personal and extreme displays of wealth offensive.

Perhaps because he was staring at them too long, one of the Bothans turned and spoke to him in a heavily accented voice. “Are you here by yourself, boy?”

Hux frowned at the _boy_ , an epithet used by every Imperial fossil that had ever spoken to Hux, including his father. “Yes. I came quite far to see the demonstration.” He turned and faced forward, not wishing to continue the conversation.

“Quite a position. I was under the impression Vennor Jo’lan had purchased this seat. You must be rather well-connected.”

Hux vaguely recognized the name, perhaps someone well-placed on Chandrila. He turned slowly to regard the Bothan. “May I ask who you are?”

The Bothan’s pointed ears laid back against its silky brown hair, and its lips pulled back from the teeth set in its long face. “Kennet Fey’lia. May I ask the same favor of you?”

The Bothan’s tone had grown measurably chillier, and the other Bothan had turned to stare with flat black eyes. Hux’s gaze flicked over to it, then back to the one in front of him. The name was also vaguely familiar, and he suddenly realized, if the seats were as exclusive as this Bothan implied, that these were likely two well-placed individuals on the Bothan Spy Network. Friends of the Skywalker-Organa family, no doubt.

“No, you may not.” Hux turned back to the stage dismissively.

The Bothan made a hissing sound, relentless. “Those are Jedi robes, are they not? You must be a pupil of Master Skywalker. I don’t believe I’ve seen you at the events before.”

Hux turned back to them, annoyance now trumping good sense. He wanted the conversation to end. He pulled at the robes, making a show of sniffing them. “They are Jedi robes, yes, but they belong to Ben Solo. I slept with him last night.”

The Bothan’s non-reaction was surprising, but when they said nothing more, Hux turned back and waited for the demonstration to begin in peace.

And so it did. When a Bith band began playing discordant strains of music, Luke Skywalker and Ben Solo walked out on stage, Ben a few steps behind Skywalker. He caught Hux’s eye, and the corner of his mouth twitched before he stared resolutely at the back of Skywalker’s head.

When they reached the center of the raised platform, Skywalker put a palm up and smiled, and the large crowd applauded politely. Here again was the charming, public version of the Jedi master. Hux crossed his arms and frowned, remembering the shame he’d felt hours earlier.

“Thank you all for coming today. As you may or may not know, Ben, Nella, and I recently visited with the Howten delegation in Perric Thirteen. We formally invited them to the New Republic, and I hope we can welcome a new member nation soon.”

There were cheers, and Hux felt something twist in his stomach, realizing suddenly that this was propaganda. These Jedi demonstrations were so rare, of course eyes would be on this. Howen would feel awkward about declining after a spectacle like this in their honor. Perhaps their trade or political partners would assume they’d already accepted, and understand this event as a celebration of their membership. But Howten seemed like too insignificant an ally to strongarm like this, so there had to be another reason. Hux recalled that the Howten gorrant herds were a treasured delicacy on Kegarri, so it was likely that the New Republic desperately wanted Kegarri as a trade partner as well.

It was expert manipulation, and Hux felt sick that he had fallen for it himself. He wondered if Ben knew. Luke Skywalker continued his speech.

“We like to act as goodwill ambassadors whenever the Senate can find work for us. It's a pleasure to share our Jedi culture with other worlds, but I know everyone gets sick of seeing me after all these years.” There was polite laughter from the audience, and Hux rolled his eyes. “So I decided to let my nephew Ben have the spotlight this time.” He stepped back, looking behind him and extending a palm. “Ben will demonstrate the lightsaber forms we practice on Hab-118.”

There was more polite applause, and Skywalker departed the stage, leaving Ben in the center, a faint smile on his face that Hux now recognized was not genuine. His eyes raked over the crowd, then landed on Hux for a brief moment before closing. He held the silver shaft of his lightsaber hilt in both hands, in front of him and at waist level. Hux held his breath until the saber was activated, the deep violet of the blade extending, slightly longer than Luke Skywalker’s own green blade. Hux could hear the quiet hum of it from where he was seated, and he shifted, excited despite himself.

Ben’s eyes sprang open, and he wore a look of concentration as he began to move through the forms. Hux’s gaze stayed on the saber at first, the smooth, deep color of it and the way it sang through the air. He couldn’t believe he was seeing it in person. He couldn’t believe he was so close to it. He couldn’t believe he’d slept with Ben last night, and how much he wanted it again.

Ben’s expression was focused, but also peaceful in a way that he wished Ben could see and recognize. Meeting him in person hadn’t been what Hux had expected at all. Ben had always seemed so serious and centered in holos. Not the type of person to pick up strangers from the Outer Rim in front of the New Republic Senate. Not the kind to take them to his bed the first night. Not someone who worried about kissing, or who would show a stranger the Force, or who thought himself lacking in some fundamental way.

The expression Ben wore now was what Hux was most familiar with. It was how he looked in the prop holos, it was how he looked in the brief, infrequent interviews he gave. It was the face Hux had spent hours staring at as he watched Ben’s saber demonstrations, over and over again.

Hux thought about how Ben’s ears had turned red when he’d brought up this saber demonstrations. He thought about what Ben’s face had looked like when he’d been so embarrassed about Hux knowing he wanted to kiss him. His expression after coming, or what he looked like choking on Hux’s dick.

Hux shifted, feeling his face heat, and he began to stare at Ben’s body. His muscles bunched beneath the tunic as he moved through his saber forms, the dark moles and dark hair standing out against his pale skin and the white robe. Hux watched his skin and muscles shift around his collarbones, the bruise he had given Ben just visible to the side of his collar, and the other bruse that was further down his chest, where the sides of the robe came together.

He had tied the belt at Ben’s waist, and thought about the firmness beneath his hands, the loose fabric on his legs that concealed his muscular thighs, the flash of calf as the cuff sometimes lifted as Ben’s bare feet moved over the boards of the stage, thumping rhythmically.

His gaze moved back up to his face, those large lips that had tasted Hux just this morning pursed in concentration. The line between his dark brows. Those brown eyes, staring intently and seeing nothing at the moment. His hair, which Hux had watched him braid so neatly, tamed readily by Ben’s talented fingers like magic. Ben had offered to do Hux’s hair, but Hux would rather have died.

Hux’s hand came up to his mouth to cover it. Seeing this in person was, perhaps, both better and worse than he imagined. He calmed, telling himself that the live demonstration wasn’t as good as the holos. He’d be able to see the purple of the bruises on his chest in the holos, the way the sweat began to stand out on the cords of his neck. But the way he knew Ben now was... irreversible. He'd never see those holos the same way again.

When Ben finished the short demonstration, he stood with his feet together and saber held to the front and announced Nella, the other Jedi student. A slight girl with brown hair stepped forward, and they shook hands. She activated her lightsaber a moment later, a smooth cool green, and crossed it with his blade before they both stepped back and entered ready positions.

What followed was a series of tandem exercises, but Hux still only had eyes for Ben, who was beginning to sweat profusely under the strain and occasional flashes of sunlight that appeared through the cloud cover, sweat darkening the white of his robe and the sun warming his skin red, the flush working down and reminding Hux once again of their activities the night before. He wondered what it would be like to taste Ben like this, to run his tongue over the salt-taste of his neck and feel his pulse beat beneath it, quickened from these exercises rather than Hux’s own efforts.

He shifted again, curving the hand at his mouth and pressing his knuckles to his lips. He ordered himself to observe the saber exercise. Perhaps there was something he could take back with him to the Troopers. He’d never considered introducing Ben Solo’s saber technique to the training SIMs, and perhaps he should.

As he watched, the speed of the tandem exercises increased, the sabers becoming a blur together as the two of them danced around the stage, still in perfect sync. The girl frowned in concentration as she continued to meet Ben form for form, sweat now shining on her face as well.

With a smooth motion, they switched seamlessly from tandem exercises to a demonstration fight, still moving incredibly fast. Hux sat forward in his seat as the switch to fighting seemed to make Ben more aggressive. Ben’s movements became even more powerful, more assured. He’d never seen Ben lose himself to the exercise like this, and it was wonderful. He went faster still, and fear was beginning to show on the girl’s face as she struggled to keep up with Ben, raising her blocks just in time under the relentless strikes of his violet saber.

Hux held his breath and noticed the crowd growing silent around him as Nella’s movements became more desperate, Ben’s strikes less controlled. Soon, Nella’s knees buckled beneath her, and Ben bore down into her blade. Nella looked absolutely terrified as she called out to end the fight.

“Peace! You’ve won!”

A look of fierce triumph flashed across Ben’s face. He straightened and took a step back, his saber low at his side, but still active. He and Nella were both disheveled, sweaty, breathing heavily. Ben looked out into the crowd, meeting Hux’s eyes.

Hux was gripping the edge of the bench, leaning forward, completely mesmerized by the performance. He hadn’t bothered to hide his expression - whatever he wore on his face, Ben had earned. He nodded fiercely in acknowledgment, letting himself relax back into the seat, forcing his hands to unclench.

Luke Skywalker strode back onto the stage, staring impassively at Ben as he did so. Ben glared at him defiantly for several moments before his expression closed, hiding his thoughts. Skywalker turned to face the crowd, hands up, the disarming smile on his face once again.

“Thanks for watching today. That was Ben Solo and Nella, demonstrating several of the ancient Jedi saber techniques. As you can see, Ben can get a little carried away. We’re waiting to unleash him on any Imperials that bother to show up.”

This got laughter from the crowd, and Skywalker waved again with his black-gloved right hand before stepping back, his hand on the shoulders of both students.

Hux sighed, leaning back further into the bench and closing his eyes, trying to decide what would happen next. He was too aware of the press of people in the audience, overwhelmed again by just how _many_  people, not just humans, could be in one place, jostling and disorderly, yelling and darting in and out, boisterous, hot, all of it. His skin began to crawl, and he kept his seat at the bench, letting everyone disperse around him.

He wanted to see more of Ben, talk to him more, do more of everything with him. He wanted Ben, desperately, after that show of strength, both for himself now and to keep and take back with him. But he needed to meet with Ben again first, which seemed impossible in this sea of beings. Ben and the others had retreated to a small stone outbuilding, just to the side of the stage. Should Hux wait for the crowd to leave and let Ben come to him? Should he loiter at the entrance of the building? Should he just enter, as if he belonged there?

That seemed… tacky. Desperate. And Skywalker would likely either sense him or send him away. He’d certainly not been Luke Skywalker's favorite person, the two times they had met.

His options were limited. He might be able to find a place to stay tonight, then wait outside the Senate for Ben the next day. There was one day left of his talks. He still had Ben’s clothes, and he could use that as an excuse-

“Armitage,” a voice breathed next to his ear. Hux jumped, looking over at a slightly crooked smile and Ben’s dark eyes, obviously full of malicious intent.

“Don’t do that,” Hux snapped back, hating that Ben could catch him so off guard.

“Do what? Were you thinking about me again?”

Hux looked away, unwilling to feed Ben Solo’s ego further after his demonstration, despite the hopelessness and desperation from just a moment ago. He wondered if his concentration on his saber technique had broken their mental bond. Could Ben still read his thoughts?

“You’re so serious. Easy to startle.”

Hux turned around, ignoring that. He shouldn't be. He should be going for his blaster. “I thought your uncle would keep you.”

Ben’s mood immediately darkened as he turned to the stone hut. “No, he didn’t. I told him I wasn’t in a good place for his lessons, and left.”

Hux turned to look at the stage, then back to Ben. “I’ve never seen you push yourself so hard before.”

“I don’t.”

“You should. Regularly. It was amazing. Your body is a formidable weapon.”

At that, Ben colored again, looking out of the corner of his eye as his head dipped slightly. “It’s not the Jedi way.”

“There are other ways in the galaxy. Maybe you should find your own, if your current path doesn’t suit you.”

Ben turned to look at him then, locking his brown eyes with Hux’s. Hux wanted to continue, wanted Ben to agree with him, but he knew it wasn’t quite right. They were still in a damn public park, and they needed privacy, perhaps not the kind where they could distract each other with other things.

Hux broke eye contact first, looking out across the cityscape. “Let's go somewhere else.” He looked back at Ben, hoping that forthright interest continued to work for him. He realized belatedly that he hadn’t made himself clear, that it perhaps sounded more dramatic than intended. But he waited, seeing how Ben would react.

“I want to go too.” Ben turned and considered the skyline himself, seeming to weight options. “But I’ve only been a few places. There is one-” He stood, then looked down at Hux. “Yeah, I think there’s a restaurant we can go to. It’s… a little formal. You’ll have to come with me to get dressed.” He put his hand out, and Hux took it, letting Ben pull him off the hard stone bench.

“I don’t have anything more formal than my uniform.” Hux didn’t want to admit that he’d brought nothing more than the clothes on his back in his haste to meet Ben.

“Your uniform won’t work,” Ben explained, dropping his hand and continuing to the street, where the crowds for transports away from the demonstration were dispersing. “But we can get something else.”

Hux clenched his jaw, also unwilling to admit that he didn’t have enough credits for that. He didn’t know how much clothing cost in the New Republic. He’d been told a single outfit could buy the armor for an entire unit of Stormtroopers, but that was certainly propaganda, and he wouldn’t repeat it. But clothing meant for a formal occasion would still be expensive, and perhaps that would be enough of an excuse if he was traveling on a budget.

“I don’t think I have enough credits-”

“No,” Ben interrupted, glancing over his shoulder. “I have some formal clothes at my room in my mother’s apartments, we can probably both wear them.”

Hux wrinkled his nose. He wasn’t sure that he was ready to meet Leia Organa, nor what he would do if her reaction was similar to Luke Skywalker’s. But he didn’t have any other practical objections, so he changed the subject.

“If you have a room at your mother’s apartments, why were we staying in the Jedi hotel suite?”

Ben pushed through the crowd, and Hux was surprised to realize he went completely unnoticed. Nobody turned to look his way, even after the saber demonstration. Hux wondered if Ben was using his powers, or if people truly cared so little about speaking to him. Ben’s genuine surprise at Hux’s interest might make more sense that way, but Hux still couldn’t see it. Especially after his showing today. How could it be that nobody wanted to speak to Ben Solo?

When one of the droid-driven transport lifts pulled up, Hux followed Ben in, trusting him to know where they were going. Ben was making a face.

“Would you have gone back to your mother’s house with me?”

Hux could lie about this, but why? Ben seemed to react positively to Hux without manipulation, so he decided to be as honest as possible. “I don’t have a mother. But yes, I suppose.”

Ben seemed embarrassed, and he masked it by typing coordinates into the droid console. “You don’t have a mother? Is she dead?”

“I have no idea. I’m a bastard.”

 _Bastard_  had been a term the ex-Imperials loved throwing around, though not one that was embraced by the First Order. The younger members were largely the same as Hux - sons and daughters of lovers that were kept a secret while the legitimate Imperial heirs were off earning themselves proud deaths in the last days of the Empire. Many people Hux’s age enjoyed casual, open relationships, and the First Order embraced all children equally. He hadn’t actually been called a bastard since the age of fifteen, though he’d been called it so often before then that the term had lost its bite. He was indifferent.

Ben stared at him until the droid cut in. “Coordinates restricted. Please enter authorization code.”

Ben turned back to the console, typing something in before sitting back next to Hux. “Do you have a dad?”

“Yes,” Hux answered shortly, not wishing to invoke Brendol. He wanted to evade the subject as much as possible, noting that Ben, too, never spoke of his father.

“So would you… have taken me back to your room in his house?”

There was a lot wrong with that question, so Hux decided to start with the thing that would embarrass Ben the most, hoping it would deflect from the rest of it. “You mean, would I have taken you back to my father’s house to have sex?” When Ben looked out the window, Hux continued. “Absolutely. You seem to find it a much more taboo activity than I do.”

His father didn’t have a house, though he supposed bringing anyone back to his quarters was something like having sex in his father’s house, as he was stationed on the academy at his Father’s ship, in training for the army his father headed.

In another way, Brendol had always been vaguely troubled by his perceived lack of sexual interest, though they’d never spoken of it directly. Most recently, his father had asked a rather pointed question about whether Hux would leave anyone behind when he took his new posting. Hux assumed his father was baffled because of his own plentiful sexual appetites. He would have likely given Hux a commendation if Hux had ever had someone in his room, male or female, though the preference was always to procreate. Unlikely, in Hux’s case.

Though as pleased as his father would be about Hux getting laid, even he wouldn’t have burst into Hux’s room while he was sleeping with someone. This was the thing that Hux couldn’t get over. That Luke Skywalker had walked into Ben’s bedroom and derided him for having sex. Ben was far too old for that.

“Sex _is_  mostly forbidden for me. I’m not supposed to form attachments.”

Hux scoffed. “There’s nothing of an attachment about it.” Which was true, Hux saw it all the time. Though, now that he’d experienced it himself, it didn’t feel very true. Ben turned from the window to give him a look, and Hux continued, not really wanting to examine that. “It’s what all beings do, Ben. It’s pointless to regulate it. If you like it, you should do it.”

“Do you, you mean.” Ben looked unhappy, and he looked back out the window. Hux sensed he could corner Ben easily on this point, but didn’t want him feeling trapped and defensive before they went to a 'nice place,' so he held his tongue, looking out the window at a sky full of speeders that appeared to be owned by private citizens.

 

* * *

 

When they stepped into The Freedom Bistro for a late lunch, Hux was unusually relaxed despite the wretched name of the establishment. He was still wearing a borrowed outfit that was neither a uniform nor one that he would have chosen for himself, but it was more comfortable than Ben’s day-old Jedi robes. The clothes they were wearing made the pair of them blend seamlessly with the effortlessly wealthy patrons that made up the late lunch crowd. Hux noticed that their glances were more subtle, the colors on their clothing more subdued, and the cut less flowing. They wore very little adornment compared to others Hux had seen in the Republic City center. Still, the volume of their voices, their body language, and everything else about these people told Hux that they ruled the New Republic.

The establishment itself was also plain in an overly-extravagant way - paneled with dark wood and lit with open flame rather than powered, there were spindles full of candles dangling from the ceiling as well as groups on each table, the flickering light casting strange shadows over everything. The sight of the candles made his stomach pinch in fear. They’d used them when he was younger, during the absolute worst times. It had been presented as survival training. They had been on a starship, so had he been any older, Hux would have seen it for the desperation it was. But he had been young, cold, and hungry, and hadn’t questioned it when the lights were turned off. The cadets had stolen each other’s candles, so one had to be strong or clever, or befriend someone else who was. Cadets who could do none of these things were forced to navigate the creaking, dangerous halls of the aging Star Destroyer in blind darkness. Hux had quickly learned that the flames guttered and died in the places where the oxygen system had failed, and they had been useful in that way too.

The memory was one of the few Hux found genuinely unpleasant and horrifying, perhaps because he hadn't realized the seriousness at the time. He fought to control his breathing as he watched the candle flames burn steadily, his pulse jumping when a small cluster flickered in the explosive laughter of a red-skinned humanoid. He forced his eyes away from the candles, dismissed it, told himself to look at the rest.

There was art on the wall - real paintings of animals and pastoral scenes - and the paneling and furniture was covered in delicate carvings of vines and flowers. The tables and chairs were so thin and spindly to be almost functionally useless, and Hux eyed the larger patrons, wondering how the tiny chairs supported the pair of giant, hairy Talz in the corner.

He kept his face impassive and straightened his excessively wide cuffs as he followed Ben and the host through the sparse crowd in the room, feeling the subtle touch of glances seeing and dismissing him. He hated being here among them, but he made his own mental catalog of the faces. He would remember them here when the Order began to investigate them.

Leia Organa had kept a variety of styling product in her apartments, and he’d slicked back both his and Ben’s hair. It had been a relief after letting his own drift loose around his face all morning. It was currently combed back, but was more rakish than regulation, and he resisted the urge to bat the irritating loose strands out of his face. Ben had complained until he’d re-styled it, and it was an easy thing to agree to. In return, he’d styled Ben’s hair. He admired the way Ben’s wavy black hair caught the low light of the restaurant.

Ben had also chosen his outfit for him. He pulled at the sleeves again, hating the way they drifted across his bare hands. The main garment was some sort of hybrid between a tunic and a robe, made of an irritating loose fabric that was cut short in the front and trailing in the back, dark violet with a soft yellow jacket underneath. The sleeves were wide and long, the cuff cut to expose the back of his hands with a longer portion that trailed past his palms. The coat was a little large across the shoulders, although not excessively so. Ben had smugly informed him that it had been fitted to him two years ago, and would likely suit Hux's narrower build. The pants, another type of soft, white fabric, were a tight fit compared to the rest of the loose Republic styles. They clung to his thighs and calves in a way that Hux loathed, more used to the loose-fitting jodhpurs of the First Order. The only part that was loose was the annoyingly high waist, and that was cinched with a wide belt that was hidden by his jacket.

He had once again refused any footwear other than his own boots. They were not only superior to anything Ben wore, but were also fitted exactly to his feet. He’d cleaned them as Ben had fussed through the tiny closet in the sad, bare bedroom in his mother's apartments. He had been told that Luke Skywalker and Han Solo had similar rooms in the suite.

“If you all have rooms, why aren’t you staying with your mother rather than a hotel? There’s a free room for Nella. And this one is large enough to fit two more beds, if you needed more of a communal living space.”

Ben had given him a strange look at that. “That other room belongs to my father. But we always use a hotel in Republic City. We don’t want to inconvenience my mother.”

“Inconvenience?”

“She’s busy, and she would feel like she has to spend time with us.” Ben shrugged, going back through his closet for a third time. “She doesn’t. She has more important things to do.”

Hux didn’t pry, though he wondered if Ben had a similar relationship with Leia Organa as Hux had with his father. Ben didn’t seem distraught when speaking of her, though it sounded as if they were rarely in touch. Hux also badly wanted to know the circumstances of Han Solo’s relationship with the rest of his family. It was a subject of much speculation on the holonet. But he would wait for a better opening, a more advantageous time for such sharing.

Ben had worried incessantly over their clothing for this outing. This activity had been completely foreign to Hux, and Ben had grown increasingly annoyed when he realized that Hux could offer no advice. Ben’s pout had been amusing, and Hux had let his lack of interest show plainly, his reactions to Ben's questions short and indifferent as he continued to clean his boots.

Eventually, Ben had lost his temper, offering the closet to Hux and telling him he would have to choose or go naked. Hux had given the closet a cursory glance, then quickly realized that the majority of the clothing was too small, the contents of the closet going back to Ben's childhood. He angrily found the only four outfits that were the correct size, and Ben had chosen two of them, too committed to his pout to be embarrassed.

Hux’s own outfit felt ridiculous on him, despite the way it obviously blended in here. It also felt unseemly to go without a hat to a formal occasion, though Ben had none and Hux could see nothing but the occasional veil or headwrap at this establishment. But as ridiculous as it was, he could tell well enough that the outfit suited him, by whatever definition the New Republic used.

The coy glances of the clientele were also sliding subtly to and away from Ben, though Hux still thought that he was not capturing the attention that his looks and celebrity status should have earned him. He was wearing a rich dark red robe made of an unseasonably heavy fabric that was causing him to sweat already. The robe trailed to the ground, and was trimmed in silver and cut to reveal the lighter diaphanous white robe Ben wore underneath. It was cinched with an ornate black belt, and hid the monstrous footwear that Ben had chosen for himself, undeterred by Hux’s sharp criticisms. Ben’s hands were hidden in the long sleeves, and the collar was high enough to hide the mark Hux had bitten into Ben last night, and another Ben had earned in the shower they had taken in Leia Organa’s apartments. Hux had indulged himself in licking the sweat off Ben while Ben fretted incessantly about his mother catching them. Hux had emphatically refused to let Ben shave, and he had the beginnings of a dark beard on his face. Hux normally loathed facial hair, but he found it fetching on Ben, and decided to let himself indulge further in this fantasy.

When they were seated at their own spindly table and chairs, Hux took a moment to reassure himself the chair would not give out below him as the host handed them menus printed on real paper. Hux glanced at it, scowling at the High Galactic calligraphy covering the sheet. They’d never taught High Galactic in the cadet programs, and Hux couldn’t read it. He glanced at Ben, straightening his coat beneath him as the chair creaked and protested.

“Have you dined here before?”

“Yes,” Ben answered absently, scanning the menu. “It’s where my mother takes me when we eat together.”

The concept of a restaurant, where one went to spend credits on food, was still foreign to Hux, who didn’t understand why there weren’t simply scheduled mealtimes where everyone was fed. But he understood that this was a social activity in the New Republic. They had a few similar establishments in the Unknown Regions, on planets where most meals were prepared in the home. Hux had always assumed this was to vary diets and spread the workload around. He’d never connected those establishments to the social versions in the New Republic.

“She doesn’t cook for you? Or you don’t have… droids that do that?” He realized belatedly that droids might not cook regular food, if the taste was meant to be enjoyable.

Ben glanced at him, then back down. “No, she doesn’t really have time for that. We usually come here. We always get the same thing.”

They were interrupted by another host taking their drink order. Hux deferred to Ben, who ordered wine. Ordering alcohol hadn’t occurred to Hux, who’d had it only rarely. He hated the taste of the three different types prepared in the First Order. He’d heard the ex-Imperials lament the finer drink choices offered on Republic planets, and suppressed his eagerness to try it. His gaze strayed back to the High Galactic menu, and he tried to work his way back to ordering.

“How do you eat on Hab-118?”

“How do I eat?”

Hux clenched his jaw, not wishing to reveal his ignorance. “Do you or the other Jedi prepare your own food? Are there… places to eat there?”

This got a half-smile from Ben as his eyes went back down to the menu. “The Kremen eat the native insectoid species. The insectoids are sentient, but I think my uncle and I are the only two people who know. I used to tell the other kids stories about it, but my uncle made me stop. He told everyone I made it up.”

Hux frowned. “That sort of predation isn’t uncommon. I know on Parum, Moatoob, and Neudaiz, there are constant wars where one species dines on another, then the power structures shift and it goes the other way.”

Ben set the menu back down, more interested in conversation now. “Really?”

Though he’d been trying to capture Ben’s attention, he realized that this topic was a little gruesome for mealtime conversation. “Sentient or not, do you prepare your own food?”

“Well, yeah. We all take turns making it. We also grow it, and catch the fish ourselves.”

Hux had never prepared a meal in his life. “Do you enjoy it?”

Ben wrinkled his nose, looking back down at his menu. “No. The plants are seasonal, but everything else tastes the same.”

When Ben didn’t elaborate, and Hux couldn’t think of another question to pry a short, stilted answer out of Ben, he blew out an annoyed breath. “Are you not enjoying my company, Ben?”

Ben glanced up at him, his face turning red. “No, it’s not that-”

They were interrupted by the wine, which was poured as a sample that both Hux and Ben stared at before Ben took the hint and drained it, assuring the host that the bottle was good. Both were poured a glass, and the host asked for their meals.

“What would you recommend?” Hux inquired, gesturing to the menu he couldn’t read.

“Depends on your taste. We have veerik noodles sauteed in kam sauce, with seasonal gennaweed as a side dish. If you’d prefer something warmer and palate-cleansing, we also have a red Kemaati soup, which would pair well with the wine your companion has chosen.”

Hux didn’t know what any of those things were, but he nodded brusquely, handing his menu over. “Then I’ll have the soup.” He frowned when he saw the Aurebesh menu on the back of the paper.

“I’ll get the same,” Ben added quickly, looking annoyed and shoving his menu at the host.

“Of course. Your meals will be out presently.” The host bowed and left them in peace.

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Hux sipped his wine. It was sour and tasted much the same as the horrid Barati vodka he’d been forced to drink at the Academy. He controlled his expression, setting the glass carefully down on the table and looking back up at Ben. Ben was studying the top of the table, picking at his cuticles, obviously uncomfortable.

“Do you enjoy wine, Ben?”

Ben glanced at him, then abruptly drained his glass in three swallows. Though taken aback by the reaction, Hux still watched his throat work. Ben took a deep breath, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth like a barbarian before setting the empty glass back down on the table. “I don’t have it often, so I don’t know a lot about it.”

Hux refilled Ben’s glass, annoyed at how difficult this was. “What made you choose this particular bottle?”

Ben glanced at the bottle, then began twirling the glass between his fingers, still not looking at Hux. “It’s what my mother ordered last time we were here.”

Hux let the silence play out before he decided to prod again. “Ben. You aren’t enjoying yourself. Why not?”

Ben’s hands stilled, and he looked up at Hux again. “It’s not that.” He put his hands out, palms toward Hux in a gesture Hux couldn’t interpret. “It’s just… I’ve never done anything like this before. It’s different.”

Hux knew what he meant, but Ben was being irritating, and he wanted to make sure things were clear between them. “Anything like this before?”

Ben’s expression darkened, and he leaned forward. “With another person. Sex. A date. Sleeping together. Arguing with my uncle to spend more time with you.” He showed teeth, then leaned back with an ominous creak from his chair, a derisive look on his face. “I thought you were smart enough to pick up on that.”

The volley was impressive. Hux directed his gaze back to the table, toying with his own glass, mimicking discomfort to make Ben feel guilty. “I just want to make sure I understand what’s happening, Ben.”

He glanced up while his head was still bowed and saw Ben immediately deflate, a wounded expression crossing his features. Now was the time to press, and Hux did so, leaning across and leaving his hand in the center of the small table.

“I’ve never done any of this before either. Dates. Sleeping together.” He left out sex, not able to admit it even to win his cause. Dating was not a concept they had in the First Order, and he was amused to realize that’s what Ben assumed they were doing now. “But I’m enjoying it, Ben. I don’t understand why it’s upsetting you.”

Ben took his hand, and Hux could feel his grip, hot and damp, nervous. It was also in Ben’s eyes. “I’m enjoying it too, and that’s… why. It’s _different_.” He emphasized this as if Hux would understand. “This isn’t me.”

“Do you want it to be?”

Ben’s eyes bore into his, more intense. “I don’t know. It’s only been a day. Not even one. It’s… disturbing.”

Hux pulled back reflexively before he could stifle his hurt at being called ‘disturbing.’ Ben tightened his grip.

“Not like that, but… it’s _different_.” Ben gestured with his other hand, obviously frustrated that he couldn’t put it into words.

Hux ran a thumb over one of Ben’s knuckles. “Is _different_  worse, Ben?”

“No, other than… I feel like it’s something I shouldn’t be doing.”

At that, Hux did pull away, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair, not able to hide his wounded pride, even as he knew that this was exactly what he wanted from Ben. But it felt like rejection in a way that Hux couldn’t rationalize. Still, Ben was responding to him. Ben was telling him he didn’t _want_  to reject him. He needed to figure out how to free Ben from his regulated life.

 _And into mine_.

He would have rejected Ben if their positions had been reversed, wouldn’t have even entertained him this long. He shifted, rejecting the thought. They weren’t reversed.

“Ben, you are twenty years old, and I find your lack of personal freedom disturbing.” He frowned, this part at least genuine. “You have to fight with your uncle to demonstrate your actual, quite formidable skills in a public forum where you are supposed to be doing that anyway? He gives you no privacy, it sounds like you live a life where you’re contained, restricted, told what to think and do-”

He closed his mouth and felt his face burn. This was most of a propaganda speech he gave to new cadet recruits on planets where political oppression was a factor. He didn’t want to give this speech to Ben, but Ben’s face was folding into a scowl, which was something, and Hux continued, leaning forward, letting his speech happen.

“It’s no way to live. Don’t you want to make your own decisions? Your own life? Do something good for the galaxy?”

_The First Order is here for you. We bring aid to planets like yours, and offer a way of life where you, who know their suffering best, can help those like you. You can help us find balance, and you can help us bring down the New Republic, whose limitless wealth is never sent outside the Mid-Rim. Help us seize their resources, help us find our own rich planets, and help us bring prosperity to the galaxy as a whole._

Ben snorted, his gaze still directed down. “Do something good for the galaxy.” He raised his eyes, his expression derisive now. “And what do you do that’s good for the galaxy?”

Ben had given him a perfect opening. Hux swallowed, evaluating how best to pursue it.

“You never asked what I do for a living.”

Ben’s mocking surety disappeared. “No.”

“You also never asked my name.”

Ben looked more embarrassed at this, though his expression cleared quickly into something more neutral. “Hello, I’m Ben Solo. Who are you?”

“Armitage Hux. I prefer my last name, but I didn’t mention it to your uncle because my father was an ex-Imperial.”

Ben looked trouble for a moment by that, but nodded. “Okay, _Hux_.”

“And what do you do for a living, Ben Solo?”

“I’m a Jedi.”

“And here to save me,” Hux returned mockingly. “What kind of living does a Jedi have, Ben Solo?”

“Well, _Hux_ ," Ben returned, falling into a defensive sulk. “I aid diplomacy. I… entertain.”

“You seek inner peace, which you don’t have. You aren’t allowed to practice physical arts beyond occasional demonstrations, which you are skilled at. You aren’t even allowed to go out at night.”

Ben looked more outright angry at this, and Hux put a palm out to stop him, knowing he had pushed Ben too far, but it needed to be said. He’d need to rely on Ben’s interest in Hux’s personal life to hold him, which Hux was fairly certain he had. “I’m a training and recruiting officer.”

Ben frowned, still angry. “Training and recruiting for what?”

The restaurant was private, and there weren’t many others seated around them. Still, Hux leaned forward, knowing he was doing something dangerous, something that could get him executed by either side if the wrong person found out. “What do you know about New Republic intervention in the Outer Rim?”

Ben shook his head. “Nothing.”

Hux smothered his spike of anger, because of course he didn’t. But anger wasn’t useful. Education was. “That’s because there’s nothing to know.” The retort came louder than he’d intended. He closed his mouth and got himself back under control, taking a breath and starting again. “They don’t intervene, not really. Even the planets that agreed to ally themselves with the New Republic because they were desperate for aid get little of it. Their Senators campaign for such resources, but the New Republic’s aid is tied up in months of debates about whether they need to send a committee to investigate the need. The investigation takes months, _analyzing_  the investigation takes months, and when it comes time to do something, they find a reason not to.”

Ben looked uncomfortable. “Well, they have to investigate, after the Pedet incident.”

Hux made an involuntary grunt. “ _That never happened_ , Ben. That’s the New Republic justifying the time they waste to conceal their greed. Do you honestly think planets _pretend_  to need food and water? Do they wage fake wars in order to scam the Senate for resources?”

Ben’s eyes had fallen to the table. Hux took a breath in and out, sitting back in his seat.

“I recruit and train Troopers that we use to govern the Unknown Regions and Wild Space. We aid struggling governments, free oppressed populations, and re-distribute resources where they are needed.”

Ben looked up, surprised. “Then the New Republic doesn’t have to. You’re already taking care of it.”

Hux shook his head, his anger growing. He forced it down, reminded himself Ben was ignorant. It was better this way, because he would listen to Hux and come with him.

“Ben, we are a small organization, and we grow slowly. It takes time to find a way to help war-torn planets. It takes time to find extra water resources, then send them through the Outer Rim and Wild Space to the planets that need them. It takes transports and manpower and defense that those planets don’t have, and we provide them. Where do you think we get those resources, Ben?”

“The Senate must provide them…” Ben answered slowly.

“No,” Hux returned sharply. “We don't have anything to do with the Senate. We do everything ourselves. We build our own ships.  We have to find mining resources and credits and material to _trade_  for credits to pay the companies that build our ships. We have to build our own weapons to defend against pirates and smugglers. Train our own army to hold planets against corrupt governments and rebellion. That’s us.” Hux took a breath, knowing this was too much at once, not able to read Ben through the haze of his own anger and… _passion_.

He paused for several seconds, leaning forward on the table, feeling it sway unsteadily under his arms. “And I recruit Troopers and train them to do all of that.”

Ben frowned. “That sounds like an army.”

“Does it?” Hux answered lightly.

“But… no planets or organizations are permitted to manufacture weapons or keep a standing army…” he trailed off. “None of that is allowed under the New Republic. There’s no army. All conflicts are resolved peacefully.”

“ _Ben_.” Hux, unable to help himself, ran a hand over his face. “We aren't part of the New Republic.  And do you honestly think that it’s possible to just… go to a planet, with a dictator that’s withholding resources while eighty percent of the population starves, and reason with them to stop?”

Ben’s face twitched as Hux watched him digest the reality of the statement. “Anyone can be reasoned with.”

He realized something, and leaned forward, reaching for Ben’s hands again. “ _You_  can reason with anyone.” He let his eyes widen, let his excitement show on his face. “The power you used. On the photographer. Do you use that to do negotiations for the Senate?”

Ben pulled away, alarmed. “No! That’s… dark,” he muttered, looking away. “Uncle Luke would be furious if he knew about that. He already thinks I pull too much strength from the dark side.”

“Dark,” Hux repeated, incredulous. “You just… fed me the New Republic line about peaceful negotiation, and _we both know that isn’t true_ , but…” he stared at Ben. “They have you and the other Jedi, who can go into a situation like that and simply-” Hux was worked up, angry, unable to keep himself under control. The volume of his voice was rising. “ _Solve it_ , with no weapons or lengthy negotiations, the resources are simply _available_ , without cost or loss of life-”

He forced himself to stop talking, and he leaned back in his seat, furious again. The New Republic was… so wealthy, in so many ways. And yet they did nothing with it. The Jedi sat, alone, on their planet, and were trotted out _for show_.

Ben spoke into the silence, confused.

“We can’t do that, Ar- uh, Hux.” When Hux looked up again, he felt some remorse, in that Ben looked embarrassed and overwhelmed. Hux knew he had revealed too much of himself at once, that he had ruined his chances with Ben and perhaps exposed the whole of the First Order to clumsy, well-meaning scrutiny by this naive idiot.

Ben continued awkwardly. “We can’t do that because it’s… dark. We can’t use our powers to force people to do something against their will.”

“Even though you won’t hurt them?” Hux snapped, still not able to stop himself. “Even if those people are forcing millions to _starve_  against their will-”

He closed his mouth again. It was still too much. This wasn’t going to convince Ben of anything. Ben was shaking his head. Hux saw pity on his face, and hated it. He looked away, face burning.

“It can’t be like that, Hux. If it was, they’d- the Senate, they’d do something about it. It can’t be as bad as you say.” He looked troubled again. “But you said you use an army-”

“Stop. Forget it.”

There wasn’t any way to salvage this. The waiter brought out their order, which was a red soup with chunks of unidentified meat and vegetables floating in it, some sort of pastry on top. Hux plunged his spoon into it, cursing himself. He’d done this wrong. He’d ruined his chances, and he’d have to-

“Hux.” Ben was staring at him, and he could see regret, and eagerness. _Eagerness_. Hux realized that Ben wanted to understand, somehow wanted to hear Hux keep talking, and didn't understand what had made Hux stop.

 _Stars_  was Ben Solo eager to please. How had he gotten through life like that? Hux stifled a snort. By doing exactly what his family told him to, to his own personal detriment. A waste of a perfectly good, able body and mind.

Ben leaned forward, his soup untouched. “What’s the name of your organization?”

Hux scoffed aloud, swirling his own soup around and bringing the pastry up to his mouth. “Like I’d tell you that. The Senate would have an investigation there in a second.” He shoved the entire hard cake into his mouth. The bread itself was crispy, with a hint of the flavor of the broth on it. It was spicy.  He swallowed it and he took a sip of the wine. It neutralized the flavor and made both taste less awful. The host had been right.

“Look, I-” Ben was growing angry, obviously still trying to find a way to make Hux continue. He glanced out to the restaurant, then back at Hux. “I won’t tell anyone. But you… say something is wrong. You’ve seen something. I just… want to know more.” His expression hardened. “For myself.”

Hux studied him. “There’s a lot they aren’t telling you, Ben, on your isolated little Jedi world.”

“Yeah, and you know the whole of the galaxy,” Ben returned derisively.

Hux rolled his eyes, impressed again despite the fact Ben was insulting him. “No, but I know more of it than a single planet, a restaurant, and the stages I’ve been on.”

Hux felt the air tighten around them, and he realized he’d made Ben truly angry. Ben was gripping the edges of the spindly tabletop, and Hux could taste Ben's rage on his tongue, suddenly. Ben hadn’t been in his mind since they’d finished their shower together. Hux knew now that it had been a symptom of Ben being nervous and ‘disturbed.’

Hux ignored the rage, taking another sour sip of his wine.

“It’s the First Order,” he answered lightly, setting his wineglass on the table carefully and looking back up to Ben. “And I will thank you to keep that to yourself. You can understand why we’d want to operate under the notice of the New Republic. It’s easy enough to conceal ourselves in the Unknown Regions, but our use of military force would not be taken well.”

Ben’s tension went away, his face clearing slightly. “No. And you said your father was an ex-Imperial.”

“I did.” Hux didn’t elaborate, choosing to fish a piece of meat out of his soup and take a bite. He nearly spit the bite back into the bowl, choking as he forced himself to swallow. The meat was rich and chewy, and the soup itself set Hux’s mouth on fire. Spicy. Too spicy. He made a choking noise as the meat worked its way down his throat, then he drained the rest of his wineglass. It didn’t erase the taste of the spices completely, and he allowed himself a cough, eyeing the bottle of wine and quickly pouring himself another glass. He held the next sip on his tongue, willing the overwhelming spiciness to go away.

He looked up when he heard Ben snicker, taking a bite of his own soup and smirking. He licked his lips after swallowing. “Delicious.” He put his spoon back in the bowl, taking a sip of his own wine and looking back over at Hux. “So _well-traveled_. Do they not have spices on Arkanis?”

Hux glared at Ben, hating him, but an idea occurred to him as he seethed.

“Find out, Ben.”

“What?”

“Come with me, tomorrow, to the Outer Rim. I’ll show you what I mean.” He swirled his spoon in his food, disgusted, thinking about the waste of credits and food now that he couldn’t eat it. “And the food too, if you want.”

“To the Outer Rim?” Ben looked confused, but Hux didn’t sense that he was resistant to the idea. He pushed harder, keeping himself in check.

“Yes, of course. I’ll show you what I mean.” When he saw that Ben was opening his mouth to protest, he put a hand up. “I know you’ve been… _disturbed_  by the upset in your routine. But I think you’re trying to make a decision for yourself. Perhaps traveling for a few days-” Hux paused, debating the insult, but deciding it was right in context, “-without your family, to see what I’ve told you about, will inform your decision. You’ll see it without anyone telling you what to think.” _Except me._  Hux took a sip of wine to hide the thought, though Ben’s eyes narrowed, and Hux wondered if he sensed it anyway. “And if you decide to go back to your… routine. You can.” Hux shrugged. “How angry can your Uncle be over taking a few days to yourself?”

Ben leaned back in his chair, expression stormy, but Hux could tell he was thinking about it. He suppressed a smirk, realizing that his burst of temper had been more persuasive than he realized.

Or Ben really was that smitten. Hux discarded the thought. He couldn’t imagine it was as easy to lead Ben around as Ben was making it seem.

When Ben took too long to respond, Hux made his last and best move, leaning forward, laying his hand on the table again and dropping his voice. “Ben, I did it myself. I left the Outer Rim and came to this planet. This-” he gestured to the bowl, the room. “None of this is anything I’ve seen before. But I left in order to have a new experience this one time. Because I wanted to meet you. And I did.” He put heat behind the words. “Do you think I regret it?”

Ben sighed, dropping his gaze, and Hux knew he had won. He took Hux’s hand, and this time his grip was dry, firm, not nervous.

“You really did just take a vacation to see me,” Ben repeated, still seeming to disbelieve the idea.

Hux hated, still, that Ben thought himself so unworthy. “Yes, Ben. I refuse to stroke your ego further on the subject.” Hux squeezed his hand, letting his other join Ben’s to envelop it fully. “But it has been an interesting and useful experience. Don’t you think?”

Ben’s eyebrows went up. “Useful?”

“I learned about the Force, didn’t I?”

Ben’s expression tightened, and he closed his eyes. Hux felt the familiar presence in the back of his mind. Curiosity. Affirmation. He smirked, knowing that Ben could sense his triumph, and Ben sighed, looking annoyed.

“What made you suddenly decide to see me?”

“The timing worked out. You were off Hab-118, and in Republic City.” Hux paused, then said the rest of it, because Ben could see it in Hux's thoughts anyway. “I just finished my formal training. This leave is standard for all new officers before they begin their permanent post. Typically we go somewhere local, to a pleasure planet or a destination nearby. I don’t know anyone else that went all the way to the New Republic. It borders on forbidden.”

Ben looked impressed at this. “What’s your permanent post?”

“Training and recruiting, I told you.” Hux glanced over Ben’s shoulder, then back, deciding to share more. “I design the training program. I decide the trooper weapon and fighting techniques, based on situations we’ve run into on planets throughout our territory.”

Ben looked more interested in this. “Combat training?”

“Yes.” Hux allowed himself another smirk, and the genuine warmth behind his next words. “I’d love to show it to you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The pedantic part of me needs to mention that I know Ben's lightsaber isn't violet, but that was in the proto-version of this fic that existed before TLJ, and I like it too much to change.
> 
> Most of the throw-away references to food, resources, and place names are my own made-up nonsense, but sometimes there's _a lot_ to make up. I've borrowed planet names from Phantasy Star enough times that I should probably mention it here. The cannibal (xenocannibal?) planets are all from Phantasy Star Online, and are more obvious than the Phantasy Star references I made in the last chapter.


	9. Part Two: Yonec - Chapter 3

Hux landed on the planet, his head still throbbing from the abuse he’d suffered at Snoke’s hand. He’d just barely made it to the demonstration, had approximately thirty minutes to travel from the port to the coliseum where the event was being held. He’d purchased his ticket well in advance this time, planning on reaching the planet several days early.  Snoke had very nearly ruined that plan, and Hux had been fully prepared to order to destroy Snoke's planet from orbit with the turbolasers on the _Finalizer_.  It wouldn't have killed Snoke, and probably would have led directly to Hux's death, but it would have been worth it.  This was the perfect opportunity to intercept Ren, and he'd spent nearly all his credits on the very expensive ticket. Good to know that the New Republic still offered prohibitively expensive luxuries, and that some things never changed.

He hadn’t bothered to bring anything aside from his uniform, and once again, he found he stood out in the crowd. This time, it was also his build and species - the beings inhabiting this planet were avians that barely reached Hux’s chest, and there weren't many off-worlders. The Motavians all had brown feathers, and the clothing styles were small and scant, mostly made from some translucent yellow fabric. All of them, including children, wore quantities of silver-colored jewelry jangling around their legs and neck, and Hux noticed that those pushing into the better seats wore stones in the jewelry.

The coliseum itself was modest compared to the residents, and similar to the basic open-air stages he’d seen in the Unknown Regions. It was round, with a ground-level stage at the center and layers of elevated stone seating rising above it. It was vast, much larger than any other Hux had seen, and appeared to hold more of the avians than a Star Destroyer held Troopers. As Hux pushed through the crowd, he noticed avian vendors on stilts walked among the rows, holding out what appeared to be shriveled, skewered meat and some sort of spun confection, both of which smelled foul. It was chilly, and a cold wind assaulted Hux with food and crowd smells.

Hux’s seat, as expensive as it was, turned out to be among the top rows, and he angrily squeezed himself between two families that were chattering excitedly in a language Hux couldn’t parse.

The familiar ringing in his head twined together with the lingering pain from Snoke, and he had mostly grown used to the sensations, pushing them to the back of his mind and mostly ignoring them.  But they intensified as he remembered the Bothan couple he had sat next to the first time he’d seen one of Ben’s events firsthand. The memory only made him angry. He couldn't defend his presence by explaining that he slept with Ben this time, though the beings didn’t seem as interested in him as perhaps they should have - Hux spotted only three other off-worlders in the crowd of avians, and no other military uniforms.

Soon, very soon, a quiet rippled through the crowd, and Hux watched as Ben Solo strode to the middle of the center platform with a blue-clad being who announced something in that tongue Hux couldn’t understand. Whatever it was met with approval, and a hooting roar rose up from the crowd. Hux cursed under his breath. He didn’t have a protocol droid with him to translate. Again. Though even if he had brought one, he wouldn’t have been able to afford its ticket.

The blue-clad avian gestured grandly to the audience, pointing to first one side, then the other. The hooting grew louder where it pointed, the beings standing and stomping and swaying. Hux remained seated, his headache growing worse. The presenter gave a lengthy, enthusiastic speech in this way, and when it was finished, there were fireworks, exploding above the arena against the bluish-purple sky in reds and golds. The avians loved it. Hux hated it, closing his eyes and pressing his fingers to his temples to try and push down his nausea.

Then the crowd noise grew quieter and Ren stepped forward in his tight white ceremonial pants, his lightsaber gripped lightly in his left hand. He was barefoot, and his hair was braided back neatly away from his face. Hux couldn’t see him well from where he was, but the air temperature on this planet was too cold for so few clothes. Hux wondered how the native beings stood it. Ren had always run hot, however, pretending as if such things didn’t bother him. Hux dismissed a stray thought about whether his nipples were hard. He couldn’t see it from here, and ordered himself not to pull up the feed from the dozens of holocams circling the stage. He rubbed at his own dripping nose and crossed his arms over his chest. His own were likely hard beneath his tunic.

Then a huge holodisplay was projected up through the middle of the coliseum, and Hux could see Ren rendered enormous, head to foot, as he assumed his first stance. He held the lightsaber casually in front of him, closed his eyes, and activated his weapon. The blade extended, and he paused for half a second before going into the first set of exercises. His nipples were not hard.

Hux was irrationally disappointed when the lightsaber activated and revealed Ben Solo’s deep violet blade, burning steadily. That wasn’t Kylo Ren’s sword. He put his hand to his chest, feeling his ID tags against his bare skin. He had never bothered to check if the kyber crystal was there. He hadn’t really needed to. Still, something in him stung at the sight of the lightsaber. The Kylo Ren that he'd taken to Ventu the last time hadn't had one.

The man doing the performance was Kylo Ren in every other way, Hux was sure of it. His braids were loose for this demonstration, and Hux watched as they unraveled, his hair falling in a riot around his face, clinging to his neck and cheeks with cold sweat. His expression wasn’t that of peaceful, concentrated Ben Solo, age twenty, but the unsettled, angry, wild look of the older Kylo Ren. Hux hadn’t bothered to watch Ren practice his sword forms in years, he much preferred to watch footage of Ren in battle. His face was covered by his mask, and Hux always imagined it twisted with undiluted rage beneath. Hux knew that Ren had private affirmations, a constant mental litany as he conquered his enemies that assured himself that he’d made the right choice, that he was doing the right thing, that any other alternative was unacceptable. The few times that Hux had heard the litany spilling over into his own mind, he recognized his own words, and nearly his own voice in Ren’s thoughts.

There was no peace for Ren when he fought, not as there had been for Ben Solo. This version of him was much more Kylo Ren than Ben Solo, though something about the demonstration still lacked some of Ren's ferocity. Perhaps that was because this Kylo Ren had yet to find his cause.

But his sword was beautiful. Hux watched his powerful legs work beneath his white pants, those thick thighs he knew so well. His calves. His tight, muscular stomach, exposed and so easy to see.

He shifted, huffing a breath through his cold nose. Hux wanted him still. He’d forgotten how attractive Ren was in his full glory. He’d always wanted him, it had been an easy enough thing to admit to himself after the ridiculousness of his ‘recruitment’ attempt all those years ago. He’d always been attracted to Ren, back then and to this day, though it had been some time since Hux had bothered to admit it aloud, or show it in any particular way. Ren simply was. He kept his body and savagery honed to a fine point that Hux couldn’t help but be drawn to. It was a weakness, though Ren had always been worth it. Perhaps Hux would tell him just how attractive he was, if Ren needed to be at all persuaded away from his current life.

But Hux could tell. He wouldn’t need to be convinced of anything.

The forms were angry, and there were more of them than twenty-year-old Ben Solo had performed. He twirled the lightsaber, speeding through the exercises, swinging the smooth blade around his back, over his shoulder. The crowd gasped and hooted appreciatively as the blade continually failed to singe and burn his shoulders, his back, his hands.

Kylo Ren, when he’d lived with Hux, had many fine scars around his hands and wrist from the quillions of his unstable saber. Hux sighed. That was simply what Ren’s hands looked like. He wouldn’t have them now, of course. It would be a different pair of hands, once Ren touched him - parted his thighs, got his tongue against the head of Hux's dick, those wild eyes staring defiantly as if daring him to say stop.

Sometimes Hux did tell him to stop, just to frustrate him. It was exquisite.

The buzzing in his head grew louder, and there was a more distinct ache in the back of his mind, in the place Ren’s presence occupied when they were this close. Hux missed it, suddenly, piercingly.

Ridiculous. He shifted again. He would speak to Ren in only an hour. They would leave together. They could do as they liked after that.

Ren finished his sword forms and stood for a moment, gasping and sweating despite the chill, eyes closed, that same angry look on his face. After a moment of silence, he opened his eyes and smiled a fake smile, and the crowd cheered. The presenter came back out on the platform, waving enthusiastically, speaking in the unknown language. The presenter looked up to the giant holo above the stage, where replays began for the demonstration. As Ren’s exercises were slowed down, sped up, and repeated, the presenter spoke and gesticulated along with the playback. Ren stood, expression blank, the lightsaber still active at his side. He said nothing.

Hux knew he hated being scrutinized like this. He’d enjoyed it as a boy, and some part of Ren would always enjoy showing off, seeking approval from others. But as the years passed, he’d sought that kind of approval in teaching and training, where he could impress others on a smaller scale and teach them, which he did genuinely enjoy. But he’d grown to loathe demonstrations like this, exhibitionism for the sake of it. He’d barely stood for it when it was a rare Trooper or morale demonstration, and that was part of a larger teaching process.

As expected, Hux saw the familiar twitch of impatience, that tightening at the corner of Ren’s mouth that meant he was growing restless. He pushed a hand through his hair, and his expression darkened as the crowd cheered a particularly agile move in the playback.

Then, four of the avians came out wearing tight gold underwear and holding a smaller version of the lightsaber, a strange version adapted for their avian arms. Hux watched Ren’s expression clear as he surveyed these new opponents.

Hux’s own mouth twitched. Four against one, in a match where Ren wouldn’t be allowed to wound very vulnerable enemies. Ren would both love and hate this kind of challenge.

The four held their lightsabers to the front and activated them, and quick as that, the demonstration began amidst quiet murmuring from the crowd. Ren met their blades, going so painfully slow to Hux’s trained eye. He watched as the beings moved clumsily around him, trying to strike Ren for real. Hux could see that they didn’t pull their punches.

Ren did, and he grew only more frustrated, more slow, his feet dragging, his sword moving lazily, his expression growing angrier and angrier.

Eventually he snapped, and Hux held his breath, sure that Ren would kill the beings where they stood and that Hux would have the pleasure of seeing intergalactic news, though it would make speaking to Ren later decidedly more difficult.

Instead, Ren disarmed the beings, using his foot to knock the handles of the sabers aside from two, and destroying the sabers of the two more skilled opponents. The four being stood, looking stunned, and Ren bowed, hiding his expression as he deactivated his own lightsaber.

The crowd cheered, loving it, and more fireworks went off above the stage. Hux clenched his jaw as the presenter returned to the stage, clapping the shoulder of each of the four beings that had sparred with Ren to thunderous cheers and hooting. There were more fireworks, lighting up the eager faces of the crowd with red and gold.  Hux sat, just as impatient as Ren, as the announcer went through the demonstration again, giving a blow-by-blow to the replayed footage projected enormous above the crowd. Belatedly, Hux remembered he could view a translation on his holopad, and brought it up briefly.

The announcer appeared to be tying Ren’s exercises into some philosophical tenets of the culture, self-discipline and restraint. Hux snorted, stowing the pad and looking down at Ren. Exactly the kind of nonsense Ren loved researching himself.

To his surprise, some expression played across Ren’s face that Hux could not read from this distance. As he leaned forward, Ren turned his head, looking directly at Hux. He was too far away for eye contact, but Hux felt his regard, a familiar cold stab through his consciousness, a sensation that Hux identified as what he felt when Ren was far away, but furious.

Hux stood, pushing past the crowd in his row to furious protests. They shouted after him in their language, the volume growing louder and more agitated the more beings he pushed past. Apparently Hux leaving in the middle of the event was some sort of Cultural Affront. Even if he had understood them, he wouldn’t have stopped.

He pushed down to the ground level of the coliseum and continued further to a backstage area, until he met with real physical resistance from the waist-high avians. They shouted at him and pushed him away in enough numbers that Hux finally tried to make himself understood.

“ _Ben Solo_ ,” he said, very slowly and carefully. “I wish to speak to Ben Solo.” He gestured angrily over their heads, then kept pushing through for good measure. Most beings tended to respond to Hux’s authority and proprietary behavior, but not the little avians. Their round black eyes and beaked faces were impossible for Hux to read, but the message was clear enough - Hux wasn't getting through.

Their voices increased, then they pulled in close and began conferring with one another, eventually turning their soothing hoots and calls and stubby avian pseudo-arms on Hux. It was clear that he would not pass, though now they seemed interested in having him stay, as they began to surround and close ranks on him.

“I don’t understand what the problem is,” he tried explaining to the tallest avian, hoping a calm, even voice would get him through, even if they didn’t understand Basic. “I wish to speak to Ben Solo. I know he’s no longer performing, and I’m certain he is just through there. It’s less trouble to let me through than to do whatever it is you’re doing now.”

He considered shouting for Ben Solo, wondering if he could simply summon him with his voice. Probably not. It never worked on the _Finalizer_. Ren would only be more likely to keep himself hidden away.

 _But he’d seen Hux. He’d looked. They’d known each other._  Certainly Ren was just as eager to see Hux and let things go back to normal?

Much to his annoyance, the aliens brought a protocol droid teetering out from behind the door.

“Honored guest,” the droid greeted in conciliatory tones. “The honored Motavians wish to know why you need to violate their sacred holiday.”

Hux blew out an annoyed breath. “I intended no violation. I wish to speak to Senator Ben Solo.”

The droid translated for the Motavians, and they continued to stare at Hux with their unreadable expressions as they talked among themselves, then to the protocol droid.

“The honorable Senator of Motavia should not be disturbed on Seeker’s Day, the holiest of holy holidays.”

“It’s urgent,” Hux tried, looking to the aliens and trying to impress this upon them with a glare. “Please tell the Senator that General Armitage Hux wishes to speak to him.”

“There is no urgency on Seeker’s Day, honored guest. All affairs cease, as life and The Way are celebrated. There is nothing else.”

Hux clenched his fists at his sides. “I understand and respect your holiday,” he gritted out thinly, “But you can understand that both the Senator and I are human, and I’m afraid this is the only day where our schedules overlap.” He paused, taking a thin breath and holding out a palm to indicate he needed to continue. “Please tell the Senator I’m here. I’m sure he’ll wish to speak to me.”

“Honored guest, I’m afraid no business is conducted on Seeker’s Day. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

Hux pushed down a wave of fury, then decided it wasn’t worth the trouble to contain his reactions. He drew his blaster, looking each of the aliens in the eye. “My business can’t wait.”

The aliens gasped and backed away, shaking their heads, one of them babbling aloud.

“Honored guest, you’ll need to stop this desecration immediately. The Way is punishing, and you cannot do this today.”

“I will stop, once ‘The Way’ to the Senator is open,” Hux snarled, giving up the pretense and shoving past the protocol droid and the startled Motavians. He knew it was foolish to push his way into a secure, private area by himself, but he’d researched the race extensively: pacifists, wealthy, accepting. It was a wonder they’d made it so long without takeover. They’d likely paid off all the potential invaders.

When he laid his palm on the door, he blacked out.

When he woke up later, cursing, he was fastened into the pilot’s seat of his transport with no memory of how he got there. He blinked, sitting up straighter in his seat and checking his person. His holopad was still in his pocket, the blaster was in his holster. He did a check of his physical state. Other than a throbbing pain in his head and a numbness in the hand that had touched the door, he seemed fine. His vision was a bit gray. He hoped that would pass.

“What the… fuck-” he muttered, using his numb hand to type in a request to the navicomputer. It reported he was in the Parlemian Trade Route, somewhere in the Outer Rim, and he was dangerously low on fuel.

“Fuck!” he shouted, somewhat more emphatically, as he pounded the console with his numb fist. The show of temper felt sour, and he was sure he was causing damage to his hand. But he couldn't feel it, and he decided petulantly to take advantage of the fact, giving the console another punch.

The pounding brought up a communication. His eyes scanned it as the computer translated it from whatever odd writing system it had been written in to Aurebesh.

_Dear Honored Guest,_

_Our apologies that you were injured on Seeker’s Day. The Way was interrupted, and it is our sincere wish to balance it with good will before the official start of our new year. Thus, we traced you back to your ship, and have sent you far from our system, erasing coordinates. We wish you good will and a fine trip along The Way._

Hux deleted it immediately, unstrapping himself and removing his jacket, tunic, and gloves, raking his numb fingers through his disheveled hair. He found an analgesic in the medkit and swallowed it dry, leaning against the metal table and letting the cold edge of it bite into his bare palms.

 _Fuck_. Why was this so difficult? Why hadn’t Ren stopped that from happening? Had the Motavians really not alerted Ren to Hux’s presence? It should have been so much easier this time. There was no hunting and finding. Ren still existed, and he was so clearly Kylo Ren. He should have sensed Hux, should have-

No. He hadn’t.

He raked his fingers through his hair again, then angrily consulted his datapad and the navicomputer. He needed to pay for fuel, and had just enough funds to make it to Hosnian Prime and back to Order space. He would need to time his next visit to coincide with Ben Solo’s Senate appearance, which should happen within the next week.

He ground his teeth and typed in a meeting request. Certainly Ren would recognize his name and cut the rest of it out.

 

* * *

 

Hux did nothing to hide his scowl as Leia Organa walked into the meeting room. Because of course she did, just as she had the last time he’d returned to Hosnian Prime and been desperate enough to schedule a meeting with her here, in this same room, in his General’s uniform, with what was probably this same cup of Republic tea. Except that time, he had wanted to speak to her, and this time he was out of patience.

The buzzing in his head, which had mostly ceased after he woke up on that ship, so tantalizingly close to finding Ren, grew loud again. He did not stand to greet her, and his eyes followed her as she took a seat at the meeting table across from him, folding her hands and looking at him expectantly. She was still pristine, hair still flawlessly braided, nothing about her out of place. Her braids and her simple white robes lent her an elegance that no amount of money could buy, and many others could learn from. True royalty.

He seized the opportunity, not bothering to guard his tongue.

“Senator Organa. I was expecting a meeting with Senator Solo. To what do I owe this… pleasure?”

His gloves creaked as he squeezed his hands tightly together. She didn’t react, keeping her eyes on his.

“You are… _General_  Hux, was it?”

“Of course, _General_  Organa.”

“Where did you earn your title, may I ask?”

Hux clenched his jaw briefly, not wanting to relive this conversation. He had no reason to placate her this time, and he would give her nothing. “I represent a few territories in the Outer Rim and… the Unknown Regions.” He bit his tongue, as they didn’t have any territory in Wild Space. Currently. He needed Ren, not Ren’s mother.

“And you represent… which organization? Controlling interest?”

“The First Order.”

“Hm. I haven’t heard of them.” She shifted, weariness briefly creeping into her expression, into those brown eyes that saw straight through him. He broke eye contact and took another sip of tea.

“What are the aims of your organization?”

 _This planet shouldn’t exist_ , he wanted to say. _This government shouldn’t exist, it should be doing so much more, if only this hadn’t happened, I need Ren, I need Ren to_ fix it _and bring_ order _-_

“We aid planets that are overlooked by the New Republic,” he answered tightly.

“All planets are within the purview of the New Republic, if only they reach out to us.”

“I am aware of that,” he bit out. “Certainly you must know how unrealistic that is.” When she answered his sharp, impatient outburst with only that penetrating stare of hers, he gave up what little was left of his diplomatic manners. “Excuse me, Senator, but I don’t understand why I’m speaking to you, rather than- Senator Solo.”

“I don’t understand why you’re speaking to Senator Solo at all, General.”

Hux tightened his jaw, but kept his face impassive. The buzzing began to subside, and he felt a stirring in the back of his mind, the faintest twitch of thought. He shifted. _He was so damn close._

“That is a matter between myself and Senator Solo. If I had wanted to discuss it with you, I would have booked an appointment with you.”

She gave him that horrid stare for several moments, but Hux decided to wait it out this time. 

She frowned, then continued.  “It’s your title that interests me, General. As you can imagine, I have a vested interest in keeping… militant interests in check. I’ve seen them grow out of hand over the years.” She drug her gaze up and down purposefully. Hux sat up straighter.

“Senator Organa, you will see just how _out of hand_  I can become if I am unable to speak to Senator Solo.” He drew his hands off the table and into his lap, folding them. “I’m not sure what you gain by speaking to me right now. Does your son require your approval for all his guests?”

This struck some nerve, there was a slight tightness around the eye. But Organa otherwise didn’t react. She was good. Very good. “My son lacks experience speaking with your type. I thought I would see if he was about to waste his time.”

“My type.” A statement, not a question.

“I misspoke earlier when I said that you _may_ represent militant interests. I meant to ask after your little ex-Imperial community. How is your father, Armitage?”

“Dead. As are the Imperials,” he answered dismissively. He took another sip of his tea. His animosity toward Imperial remnants like his father was free. Organa could have it, and he could spend it to give nothing else away.

When Senator Organa said nothing else, only continued to stare at Hux, he tried again. “I’m not sure what you hoped to gain by speaking to me. Is there something I can help you with? Certainly you knew I would not answer the questions you came to ask. You play the game as well as anyone else.”

Organa shook her head, folding her hands on the table, sadness crossing her features. “I hoped there was no game to play. I want to know why you’re meeting with Ben. And yeah, you’re right. I don’t want him drug into any games, either.”

 _Too damn bad_ , Hux thought. _He’s coming with me, if I can ever fucking speak to him_. He covered this thought by draining his glass, formulating his response.

“As I said, Senator, I represent several worlds in the far reaches of the Outer Rim and into the interior of the Unknown Regions. They are far from here, far from the New Republic.” He spread his palms on the table, glancing out the window, and kept his response neutral. “You and I both know that the New Republic is slow, deadly slow, at providing badly needed aid to worlds like those. So I was hoping to make an independent plea to Senator Solo's Motavia. I want to make a more formal request for resources. He already provides aid to several war-torn worlds that we struggle to bring peace to, and the aid is much appreciated.”

Leia’s features slackened at that, though a certain weariness stayed in her gaze. He wondered how much truth she could read. There was a lot there, in what Hux had said, but it also was certainly not the reason he was here.

As if in response to the thought, Leia shook her head, and Hux’s stomach tightened in defense. “I’m getting too old for this.” She pushed herself up from the table and stood, her hard gaze drilling into him. “I don’t know your game, General. I can’t tell if you’re a threat to the New Republic, or if the resources my son will give you will be abused. Will we all regret it later?”

Hux nearly smirked. She had no idea. _Your son’s skills will end the New Republic_.

She sighed, then took a few steps closer, leaning forward, spinning his teacup on its saucer. She used the close quarters to look into his face.

“I still know how to wage war, General. There’s enough of us here that are better at it than some trumped-up Imperial son who plays at it in the Unknown Regions.”

 _Trumped up_  was an insult that Hux was unwilling to take. It was something he was called often by his Father’s generation due to his rapid promotions. Eventually, Ren had silenced the insult for him. He wasn’t about to take the same within the New Republic Senate building. He let his contempt show on his face, standing to look down on Organa. It wasn’t nearly as satisfying as he’d hoped. She had a presence.

“Does Senator Solo know I’m here at all? Or do you screen all his calls for him?”

Her face flashed in anger this time, her mask affected by that, somehow. “I’ll send him in presently,” she said tightly.

“Excellent. I appreciate that you vetted my sincerity, while thousands of beings die in the Outer Rim.”

That earned him an eyeroll, and he would give her that - it was a touch too dramatic. But it did drive her from the room, the door slamming tightly shut behind her. He stared for a moment, then walked over to the window and looked out. She would likely make him wait for Ren’s company.

The view from the window was much the same as he remembered. A strip of grass and a few trees from the sides of the park, the sky overhead full of lanes and lanes of speeder traffic, all makes and models, most only carrying one being. All the beings were decked out in those wretchedly expensive clothes they made here. Buildings towered and twinkled in the sun that shouldn’t exist, that Hux had spent his life erasing with his own hand. The light glinted in windows of expensive, luxury apartments, off the norlanium-plated trim on the buildings in the scion corridor.

He sneered at those buildings, visible through a haze some distance off. He’d read about the scion corridor, a tourist destination famous for its decadent architecture, the homes of beings who were the current heads of the galactic Trade Federation, the Banking Clans, the heads of governments that spent their time here rather than on their own planets, siphoning their people’s money into this little tourist spectacle. There were parties there, of course. Who went to them was always all over the holonet. Ben Solo had never attended. Maybe he did now.

Why was all of this allowed to continue? Seeing it again, even with all the innocent beings crawling over the surface, was still infuriating. He shouldn't be so angry, seeing all the beings walking around, those who were running to reach their jobs, those conducting business on holopads, the families leading children. It was different, of course, being here. There were a lot of beings, and… beings like Hux. Who were just here, for other reasons, because this was where business was done. They had all died, and more than Hux was willing to admit to himself had been innocent. Perhaps a warning, an evacuation-

The door opened and he turned, fully expecting a droid or some unimportant member of staff either refilling his tea or dismissing him.

Instead, it was Kylo Ren, wearing a blue version of his mother’s simpler robes.

“Ren,” he greeted, inclining his head, feeling the buzzing in his head finally fall silent.

Confusion flashed across Ben’s face, then wariness. “Almost,” he answered lightly. “Though I prefer to be addressed as Senator Solo.”

Ben watched him carefully as he took his seat, and Hux shook his head, walking over to the table.

“What game are you playing, Ren? I came all the way here for you.” Suddenly, something occurred to Hux, and his face folded in annoyance. “And this time, you could have saved me the trouble and contacted me. You certainly have the resources and clout.”

“What are you talking about? I thought you wanted to meet with me about Motavia.”

Hux huffed, seating himself on the table. Ben’s eyes dropped to Hux’s ass, then returned to his face.

“Please. I already had to speak to your mother. You saw me at Seeker’s Day, didn’t you? You had to have known it was me.”

Ben narrowed his eyes, leaning back in his seat, then looked away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Ren,” Hux said, frustrated, “I don’t understand-” He stopped, a horrible possibility causing his stomach to clench so hard he swallowed reflexively. He grabbed Ben’s chin, forcing him to look up into his face. “Do you remember?” He asked, somewhat desperately.

Ben’s face changed, clearly showing Hux reluctance, confusion, anger. Showing, not sharing - their thoughts were still unconnected, not even by the brief stirring he’d felt earlier. Ben pulled out of Hux’s grip, standing, walking a few steps before turning and bracing his hands on the back of his chair.

“What’s wrong with you? What am I remembering?” He snapped, not making eye contact with Hux, instead staring at a point just to the left of his face.

Hux frowned. Ren remembered something. He slid off the table and stood next to him, a hand twitching at his side.

“What’s wrong,” he asked carefully. “Tell me.”

Ren exhaled, walking past Hux and to the window, staring out across the park and the city. “What’s _wrong_ , General,” he emphasized, speaking in the affected tone of voice he always used when he was saying something important, one that had always grated on Hux, “Is that I’m speaking to a nobody from the Outer Rim who came here to ask my planet a favor.” He turned to stare at Hux, meeting his eyes this time, obviously angry. “But instead of asking outright, like a normal representative, you come in here… deliberately mispronouncing my name, acting as if you know me…” He waved a hand dismissively, turning back to the window. “I’m wasting my time. Do you have a real request to make?”

“A real request?” Hux asked thinly, staying rooted to the spot, his mind working a mile a minute. “Don’t play stupid Ren- I mean, _Ben_ ,” he sneered Ben’s first name, causing the other to turn around. “I can tell you at least recognize me. Tell me why you’re acting like this.”

Ben stared at him, giving him that same penetrating gaze as his mother. Hux had no doubt that Ben could see him. All of him. Ben knew him like no other. Hux saw a moment of weakness on his face - hesitation, fear. He saw his opening, stepped forward.

“It’s me,” he tried, putting his hands out, putting something in his voice that he didn’t normally give to Kylo Ren, the thing that sat between them all the same. “You know it’s me.”

More fear, uncertainty this time. Ben licked his lips, looking to Hux, then away.

“It can’t be.” He looked back, more angry this time. “How did you know?” he asked, his voice stronger. “I told no one.”

Hux rolled his eyes. “Told no one _what_? We’re wasting time here. You know we have to go back.”

“How did you _know_?” Ben all but snarled, walking forward. “Who sent you? Why are you here?”

Hux stood, feeling Ren’s familiar rage wash over him. He waited, knowing what came next, bracing himself for it.

Ben began to pace dangerously. “Silence. You can’t tell me. Or won’t tell me?”

“I sent myself,” Hux snapped, following him with his eyes, not turning his head. “Where do you think I came from? I can tell you remember.”

“My dreams? Was I supposed to know you were coming? Should I have _dreamed_  it?” He stopped, turning, a dangerous look coming over his face. “Are you a Force user?”

This was so ridiculous that Hux barked out a laugh. “When have I ever displayed any proficiency at _that_?”

Ben closed his eyes, and Hux saw the struggle on his face. He opened them, more resolved, closing the space between them, leaning down into Hux’s space.

“This isn’t a simple Senatorial visit, is it? It’s not about either of our… constituents.”

Hux rolled his eyes, but remained otherwise stationary. “Your _constituents_. As if you care about that, or have any skill at it. Does your mother tell you everything to say? Or do you occasionally have your own opinions?”

Ben made a noise low in his throat, and an ungloved hand came up to clutch Hux’s chin. Ben snarled before he got control of his face, and Hux could see the war he had with himself to keep himself calm. Hux was unfazed. Kylo Ren would never hurt him. Hux’s lip curled. “Don’t bother at affecting manners on my behalf. You do know me better than that.”

Ben’s grip on his chin tightened first, then the fingers of his other hand slid into the hair at Hux’s temple, mussing it. “Good. Then I don’t have to pretend that I’m going to be polite about this.”

Hux closed his eyes and didn’t answer. He knew what was about to happen. Ren had never forced his way into Hux’s mind as if Hux were an interrogation suspect. He’d never had to. Hux had always welcomed him gladly, as much as he ever welcomed anything.

So he inhaled and thought of Ren, Ben Solo, Kylo Ren, all the things he knew about the man in front of him. There was something wrong, some miscommunication, and Hux didn’t know what it was. This would resolve it, quickly and easily, though he wondered if this would be as two-directional as it was previously. Ren knew him, and Ren would never hurt him. But Ben’s confusion was genuine. And Hux had forced him to this, in more ways than one.

It did hurt, even with his senses attuned to the Force user before him. A sharp pain split his head front to back, digging in at the base of his spine and silencing his thoughts even as it tore Hux apart from the inside. He gasped as he realized it felt like Snoke’s intrusion.

 

_“What are we doing in the Dortal system, General Hux?”_

_The rest of the room had jumped when they heard the door wrench off its track and slam into its housing. Hux had merely closed his eyes for a moment. He had sensed Ren’s rage before Ren had even landed on the ship, and had spent most of the meeting trying to ignore it. “Ren. Your training mission has completed. We are-”_

_“In Wild Space. Why are you not pursuing the remnants of the Rebellion in the Mid-Rim? Why are we not among the former Republican worlds, making our presence known?”_

_Hux had turned then, taking in Kylo Ren for the first time in three months, since his training had taken him away after Starkiller. He had been much the same, covered head-to-foot in black. Ren had found a new helmet._

_Hux hadn’t stood. There had been two other Commanders holoprojected to either side of him, and four other officers physically present, along with Bariss, two engineers, two weapons specialists, and a navigations officer present for the meeting. He knew all of them would be staring at Ren. None but Bariss had seen him angry before._

_“If you recall, much of the personnel on the_ Finalizer _specialized in weapons and Trooper training, Ren. This meeting is to investigate research into a new type of plasma-”_

 _“I did not_ ask _what this meeting was about,” Ren had responded, loud enough that the vocoder in his helmet popped. “I asked why we were not pursuing the Rebellion and our goals.”_

_“Sir-” Bariss had begun, but Hux had put out a hand, stopping her._

_“You’ve been gone for three months,” Hux had responded quietly, narrowing his eyes in warning. “That’s a long time after what happened. Perhaps a public meeting is not the best place for a briefing.”_

_Hux’s reasonable request for delay had been met with Ren Force-pulling him bodily across the meeting room until he had dangled just above the foor in front of Ren’s outstretched hand._ _Of all the things Hux hated, Ren pulling him around with the Force outside the context of their bed was one of the most loathsome. Several of the officers had gasped behind him, and he'd also heard the sound of at least one chair scraping as someone stood. Ascientist and the nav officer fled the room through the broken door behind Ren._

_Ren's attack had looked worse than it was, and that had been the thing Hux focused on as he had tried to master his own rage at the humiliation. The others would think Ren was doing him bodily harm._

_He had sneered. “I see you found a new helmet, Ren. It becomes you more than that mark of defeat branded across your face.”_

_There had been a nearly suffocating pressure around him as Ren’s fury had threatened to smother him. Behind him, there had been at least one audible grunt from an appreciative audience. A small, petty part of him had delighted in the insult. He had made his expression as neutral as possible and turned to look over his shoulder, shocked that Ren had allowed it._

_“Colonel Bariss. This meeting is dismissed. Contact the comm officers and reschedule for tomorrow.”_

_“Yes, sir.”_

_As he had hung in the air above Ren, the officers departed amid the unmistakable fizzle of the holoprojectors deactivating. All the attendees had made a careful point not to stare at himself and Ren as they had exited. All except for Bariss, who had walked up and stood next to him, pointedly ignoring Ren. He had felt the pressure tighten, and he’d given Ren a sharp look._

Don’t you fucking dare, Ren. Don't touch her. Not now.

_Ren hadn’t responded, but he’d turned away from Bariss._

_“Is there anything else you require, sir? Any… assistance I can render?”_

_It had been fairly typical toadying from her, and Hux had nodded in acknowledgement. “Unnecessary, Colonel. Have someone organize the scheduling for the meeting and send it to me when complete. Dismissed.”_

_“Yes, sir.” She’d given him a strange look, but had exited through the broken door, not once looking at Ren._

_He’d turned back to Ren._ _“Well, are you finished throwing me around, or am I going to have to endure more before continuing with my day?”_

_“You dismissed my questions and disrespected me in front of your officers,” Ren had hissed. “I hold just as much of a command here as you do. You would execute anyone who treated you that way.”_

_Though true, Hux had refused to acknowledge it. Still hanging a foot above the ground, he’d raised his eyebrows and clasped his hands at his waist. Ren’s rage had been tangible, had crawled over his skin and up the back of his tongue. Ren’s fingers flexed, and Hux had recognized that he was dangerously close to snapping._

_Still, he had taunted. “What will you do, Commander Ren? Do you plan on torturing me? Choking me? Interrogation? Fighting me?”_

You won’t touch me, Ren. Put me down.

_He had known the directed thought was dangerous, even more dangerous than Ren’s words. So he hadn’t been much surprised when Ren’s unoccupied hand grabbed his lightsaber and activated it. Ren had wordlessly brought the unstable blade next to Hux’s face, close enough that he had felt the heat of it and the occasional spark had singed the skin of his cheek._

_He’d looked down into Ren’s helmet, watched the wavering red light wash over it and light the rest of the room in eerie shadows._ _He had no fear. Ren would never hurt him, and Hux could never say or do anything that would force it. They both knew it. So they had stared at each other for a full minute, and Ren had been the one to break, deactivating his lightsaber and dropping Hux on the floor._

_Hux had landed on his knees and scowled up at Ren, straightening his uniform unnecessarily. He had felt Ren's fury collapse into a weaker self-directed anger. He had also hated Hux for knowing his weaknesses so well. After a moment, Ren had taken a menacing step forward, and Hux had put out a hand._

_“Stop it. Must we do that again?”_

_Ren had finally removed his helmet. His gaze had been as wild as ever, his hair long and greasy, the scar much less livid than Hux had expected, as if Snoke had treated it for him._

_“_ Why _, Hux?” Why aren’t we in Republic space? Why are we still hiding all the way out here?”_

_“We aren’t hiding. Don’t you think I sent people into Republic space, Ren? What am I going to do there? Diplomacy? Resource management? What role do you see for you and I amid all that?”_

_The truth of this had struck Ren off-guard, but he persisted. “There are still conflicts! We should be hunting down the remnants of-”_

_“The Resistance? Done. We got them all, Ren, just after you left. The_ Full Moon _cornered them on Crait. We entered their base and eliminated them.”_

_Ren’s mouth had opened, then closed, his rage igniting in Hux’s mind once again. “How could you just… what about Skywal-”_

_“Skywalker’s dead. He tried to distract us, but it didn’t work. Some Jedi trick. It failed not long after we started._ _There was a map to his location among the bodies at the base, he was at Ahch-To. The_ Illusion _was sent to his location, and he was eliminated."_

_“A… Jedi trick,” Ren had repeated flatly, a kind of numb shock washing over his thoughts._

_“I can’t help that Snoke keeps you isolated, Ren. Say something to him next time, rather than throwing me around my own meeting.”_

_“My uncle, and the Resistance-”_

_“And the New Republic.”_

_Ren had been focusing on the wall behind Hux, and Hux had felt Ren slowly master his emotions, closing himself off to Hux as he did so. Still, Hux had known he was shocked, unpleasantly so. The news hadn’t been as welcome as it should have._

_“What’s next?” He’d asked dully, finally focusing on Hux._

_“We’re continuing to explore Wild Space, to expand the Order in this area. We’re looking for improved weapons tech, new techniques for the Troopers, and the next big pacification campaign. Same as we’ve always done.”_

_“But we. Won.”_

_“Life goes on.”_

_Ren swallowed, and Hux felt despair leaking in through the cracks of his thoughts. “What… am I supposed to do?”_

_It wasn’t as if Hux hadn’t understood exactly what Ren was feeling. After Starkiller’s destruction, it had been nearly the same blow to Hux to realize that he simply didn’t fit in with the expansion efforts into former Republic territories. He could organize the New Republic efforts, but he had taken no pleasure in that kind of endless administration work, and had delegated it to others, all but the speech-making. He was primary contact, and he recorded many prop videos. But his skills weren’t suited to what the rest of the fleet was doing._

_His skills weren’t suited to anything but making war, and neither were Ren’s. The problem was that they had won the war. It had taken Hux nearly two months to come to terms with the idea that continuing into Wild Space was what he_ did _. The realization had only now hit Ren, and Hux had no patience for coddling him through it after his outburst._

_“What are you supposed to do,” Hux had mimicked in Ren’s Republic accent. “Do as your told, Ren. Or find a new cause.”_

_Ren would do neither of those things, because before anything else, Ren was fiercely loyal to both Hux and the First Order. He would never leave, and Hux and Ren would die on their ship in Wild Space. Furious, impatient, Hux had pushed past him, jarring his shoulder on the way by._

_“Hux,” Ren had tried, a little plaintively. Hux had turned back around, if only because Ren’s shock had hit him full on when Ren had suddenly stopped masking his emotions._

_“I’ve been gone three months. I didn’t know. Hux, I was…_ worried _after Starkiller.”_

I was worried too, Ren. But you weren’t here, and I got over it. Goodbye.

 _Hux had offered him no other response, had turned back around and continued out the room._  


 

He felt Ben inhale sharply and withdraw from his mind. Hux hit the floor, but even amid the pain and the shock of the violation, he wondered if Ben had seen everything, or only the thing he’d remembered just before. If it was that, Hux would be horrified. It was not a memory he particularly wanted himself, and it was not how he wanted to be seen by Ben Solo.

But it was done, both the past and whatever Ben had seen now, and he couldn’t worry about it.

Hux hit the ground on his hands and knees, pressing his forehead to the floor to steady himself. There was a thin, finely woven carpet covering hard tile, because of course there was. But the fabric felt soft against his forehead, and he closed his eyes. After a moment, he sat back on his knees, opening his eyes and willing his vision to be clear and steady. He wiped at his mouth. No blood. That was good.

He could see Ben’s feet in his peripheral vision, wrapped in some sort of ridiculous open-toed New Republican footwear, the wrap disappearing up his bare calf underneath the shifting hem and fabric of his robes.

Abruptly, Hux was hoisted back to his feet, and Ben’s hands were on him. This time, blessed relief spread through his head, the pain chased away by a warmth, a familiar presence. Confused. Overwhelmed. Remorseful.

It had been all of it, then. Ben had seen all their memories.

“You should be sorry,” Hux snapped. “There was no reason for that.” That wasn’t true, but Ben would know that. He locked eyes with Ben, who was looking at Hux with genuine astonishment.

“My dreams,” he spoke low, disbelieving. “They weren’t. They weren’t visions. Only dreams. But.” He closed his eyes and swallowed, shaking his head.

“Dreams?” Hux steadied himself on Ben’s waist, closing his eyes and checking himself over, making sure that he was well, mentally and physically. “You said that last time, when we met in Republic City. That you dreamed, that it was… in tandem with this life. But you called it a vision.”

Ben’s eyes opened. “There is a difference. They weren't visions, but they were vivid dreams. You were in them,” he said, still full of wonder. “But you’re real. You exist. You… all the things I dreamed, they were... you. Visions of you.”

“I’m real,” Hux said, more impatient to connect and shove aside the misunderstandings this time. “Last time you believed I was real before you interrogated me like a common criminal.”

“I’m sorry,” Ben said, lowering his eyes, and Hux raised an eyebrow. Kylo Ren never apologized. Ben looked back up, annoyed. “I assumed someone had sent you, that they somehow knew who I dreamed of. I thought you were trying to take advantage of me for some reason. I never thought- those dreams were real, that they were _visions_.”

“They are-” Hux stopped himself. Were they real? He shook his head. “They were real. You were more certain last time. You identified them as visions last time.”

“Last time. I… saw that. You believe something happened to you. That you sought me out. Again. I didn’t dream of that, but I saw it in your… memories? Your visions. You think they're memories."

Something in Hux tightened at the thought that it could have been a vision. “It was a memory,” he verified, slightly too defensively. “But this is… real, now, I suppose.”

“Real,” Ben murmured low, disbelieving, almost a whisper.

And because Hux knew it was right, and had anticipated it ever since seeing Ben Solo at that demonstration, he closed the distance between them and kissed Ben, bringing their lips together.

It was just as awful as last time, as if Ben had no idea how this worked. But he must have seen it in his dreams. Did that count as experience? It didn’t truly matter. Hux licked at his lips until they parted, his tongue entering Ben’s mouth and tasting spice and mint. He pulled back to speak, and Ben’s fingers snaked through the hair at the back of his head, his other hand at Hux’s waist.

“Disgusting,” he murmured against Ben’s lips. “You’ve been eating some vile New Republic cuisine.”

“I live here,” Ben muttered back, obviously wounded, and Hux yanked on his shoulders, bringing their lips together again.

The second attempt was better, Ben’s lips now working against Hux’s own, and Hux slid his hands back and down, gripping Ren firmly by the ass, feeling the firmness of muscle beneath the thin layers of his robes. Ben moaned, leaning into Hux and holding him tighter. Hux felt his presence in his head, intense, overwhelmed, _joyous_. He pulled back again, frowning.

“You’re never that happy to see me.”

” _Hux_ ,” Ben murmured low, desperate. His eyes were wild, he was squeezing Hux hard. “I’ve never- I’ve not. With anyone else. Whenever I thought about it, I would dream of you, and I couldn’t. There was only you.”

Hux was confused for a moment, before he remembered how the younger Ben Solo had spoken of sex when they were first together. And then he was struck silent at the thought that, in this lifetime Ben had spent away from Hux as a Senator, _he could very likely have been with someone else,_ and just how unlikely it was to come across him as a lonely 34-year-old Senator. He was attractive, and loved sex, and was _Ben Solo._ A wave of jealousy and possessiveness swept through him, fury following quickly in its wake. Ben Solo, curse him, smirked.

“You’ve never done this either?”

Hux wanted to punch him, but instead, he kissed him harder, introducing teeth, pulling at his lips, thrusting his tongue into Ben’s mouth as if he had spent a lifetime away. His hands fisted into the fabric at the small of Ben’s back, willing the robes gone and for them to touch skin to skin. He made a frustrated noise into Ben’s mouth, and was humiliated. But that was all the signal they needed, and they were both fumbling at each other’s clothes urgently.

“Privacy,” Hux muttered, not really caring if they were walked in on, other than it stopping Ben from fucking him.

“It’s fine,” Ben confirmed, turning toward the door, then giving Hux an arch look. “Do you think I’d let anyone interrupt me? Or that they’d remember it if they did?”

Hux kissed him fiercely again, his hands stopping their work on his robes. This was him, this was Ren, confident and insensitive, but still belonging fully to Hux.

“Yes,” Ben whispered against his lips. “I’ve… waited. I didn’t realize it, but I was.”

“Enough,” Hux said, feeling aroused and overwhelmed and wanting Ren like he hadn’t in a long time. He removed his gloves and discarded them on the floor, then slid Ben’s outer robes off his shoulders. “I brought lubricant.”

Ben looked confused, dropping Hux’s belt onto the floor and pausing as he undid the catches of his tunic. “You brought lubricant?” He pushed at Hux’s mind, then a slow smile spread across his face. “You saw my demonstration.”

“ _Enough_ ,” Hux repeated, unwilling to have this conversation, undoing the sash at Ben’s waist. But his fingers paused, and he looked back up into Ben’s eyes. His hair, formerly tamed and pulled back, had come lose and framed his face. Even without Ben’s thoughts pushing at him - the welcome edges of arousal and excitement that Hux could always separate from his own, and always made everything more intense - the expression of ardent need showed readily on his face. It was the same face that he’d thought had been so shockingly expressive the first time he’d met Ben Solo. He had thought, for a moment, that the Senator was more restrained. But not like this, and the sight of his face made Hux’s stomach drop and sent his mind reeling.

“I missed you,” he gritted out, and it hurt his pride to say so. But still, this Ben didn’t seem to have all the right memories, just the dreams. And it couldn’t hurt. “You know, of course. I want you. I always have. You may need to hear it.”

Ben swooned into him, the feeling, the pressure at the back of Hux’s mind growing stronger, more overwhelming and possessive, pressing in and making Hux light up inside, his nerve endings coming alive as Ben slid his tunic off, his familiar, calloused, big hand running over Hux’s shoulders and down his bare arms, gripping his wrists tightly. Ben was walking Hux backwards, and Hux felt the horribly awkward conference table at the back of his thighs.

“Wait,” he said again, letting Ben’s robes drop to the floor, cursing as he undid the white inner robe faster, the sash, pulling everything off Ben’s arms, which was difficult - Ben was pulling Hux’s undershirt over his head, pulling his suspenders down his arms, working on the front of his pants. Both were using their hands, and it was getting in the way of the undressing.

Hux was aroused, frantic. It had never been this desperate. Everywhere Ben touched him was fire, heat spreading from his shoulders and arms, his hands first on his waist, then trailing down his thighs as he pulled Hux’s pants down, squeezing his calves as he pulled the cuffs out and off over his boots. He could feel the heat of him through the leather at his calves, and he nearly groaned as Ben nuzzled the erection where it tented his black silk briefs.

“So pretty,” Ben mumbled, dragging his smooth chin down the inside of Hux’s thigh. “Still so pretty. Just like I dreamed.”

“I’m real,” he snapped, resigning himself to wearing the boots and kicking Ben to get him to stand again, reaching up and undoing the thousand catches on his fucking Republican short pants. Hux hated the government so much. Even their fucking pants were over the top and unnecessary.

When he got them off, he was pleased to see that Ben Solo still didn’t wear any underwear.

“Did I, in your… memories?” Ben said the last word as a taunt, and Hux could feel the tease, the feeling in the back of his head. He snarled.

“They _are_  memories,” he insisted.

Ben bent back down and dragged his teeth inside Hux’s thigh. “They will be.” He exhaled against Hux’s skin, nosing at the crease next to his erection. He stood and laid Hux down across the table, the surface cold against his back, contrasted with Ben’s hot skin against his chest. Ben’s mouth was at his neck, licking below his ear, his lips dragging down the side of his neck, biting lightly at his shoulder. Hux shuddered.

This was him. This was Kylo Ren.

“Just like in the dreams,” he whispered against Hux’s ear, and his fingers combed through his hair, messing it.

Hux writhed, and he felt the surface of the table as it warmed against his back, slick as he began to sweat and slide.

“Ren,” he breathed, his eyes closing, his fingers going into Ben’s hair, one sliding down to the back of his neck, his shoulders. “Ren.”

It was too much, he _wanted_ , and it was awful. It was much different than last time, more desperate. He’d wanted Ren, wanted him whole and strong and powerful. He was here. His hands were all over, his weight pressing into Hux’s chest.

“In my tunic pocket,” he breathed, cracking his eyes open, and Ren lifted his mouth from its exploration of Hux’s chest. “The lubricant. I-”

 _You hoped. You couldn’t wait_. Ben smirked again, and he ran his lips along Hux’s nipple. Hux hissed again, arching his chest into Ren’s touch.

“No,” he snapped, trying to slide himself further up the table. “Get it now, and get your fingers into me. Be quick. I prepared myself on the way over.”

Ben sucked a mark into the center of Hux’s chest, examining it, his eyes dragging up and down Hux’s body, back to his face.

“You’re beautiful,” he said simply, and the look on his face nearly hurt. Hux closed his eyes.

“The _lube_ , Ren.”

Ren’s hands disappeared, but the warmth of the table stayed. Hux brought his heels of his boots to the surface, arching himself up. Ren’s mouth was there a moment later, his teeth pulling at the top of his briefs.

“You prepared yourself on the way over,” he murmured, his tongue working inside his silk briefs, against his balls, his nose pressing in below them, his big hands on his thighs, thumb stroking up and down.

“Yes.” Hux didn’t elaborate. He had pictured this, Ren taking him over the table. It had been a fantasy, and not one he had planned on acting out. It was juvenile and cheap. But it was also the only thing he could think of now.

The fantasy had been necessary. He had worked himself up during Ben’s sword demonstration, had imagined the two of them together and what their reconciliation would look like, and it hadn’t happened. He’d woken up alone, banished, and extremely frustrated. He’d masturbated, then sullenly continued, slipping a finger in his own ass and forcing himself to imagine Ren doing it. But it had been surprisingly uncomfortable, much more so than it ever was. The implications of that hit him now, and he felt the ripple of amusement through his own mind as Ben picked up on it.

 _Untouched. Just for me. And you accused me of being a virgin_.

“Shut up and get on with it,” Hux growled, spreading his hands on the table and boosting himself up higher. He’d had sex with Ren before. It hadn’t been just memories or dreams.

Ben, infuriating as always, let the top of Hux’s briefs slide back up, then licked his erection through the fabric, pausing to tease the leaking head. Hux grunted in frustration, his fingers twitching, longing to pull the briefs down. But Ben didn’t linger long, his mouth working its way up to the waistband again, pulling the briefs down Hux’s thighs with his teeth, freeing his erection, pausing at the base to work his tongue underneath Hux’s balls, taking them into his mouth and sucking hard.

Hux groaned. Ren had done this countless times. But this feeling was nearly new. It was fantastic. Good in a way that it hadn’t been in a long time.

He could feel Ben’s arousal growing in his own mind, Ben’s annoyance that they weren’t moving faster, and he finally yanked Hux’s briefs off over his boots, tossing them somewhere near the meeting room door.

“Finally,” he snapped. “Use the lube and fuck me.”

Ben glared at him through his dark eyelashes and kept his mouth at the base of Hux’s erection, snapping the cap on the lube and prepping one of his fingers. Hux knew what came next, and he held his breath in anticipation as Ben swallowed his erection.

Or tried to. Ren’s gag reflex had always prevented this, though Hux’s cock wasn’t nearly the impressive specimen that Ren’s was. Ren could only suck on the head and part of the shaft, but his talented hands more than made up for it, not to mention the things he could do with the Force. But he was a terrible cocksucker, and always tried. Hux watched as he gagged and swallowed several times, resting his forehead against Hux’s belly.

“Fuck’s sake, use your hand. You know better. Don't waste time.”

Ben glared at him. “I kept seeing it in my dreams. I knew I could do better.”

“I know you can’t. _Your finger_ ,” he ordered, all but begging.

And Ben finally, _finally_  slipped an index finger into Hux’s hole. It was tight, uncomfortable even with the stretching he’d given himself enroute. Ben sensed this and went slowly, his knuckles catching at Hux’s rim. As he built more rhythm he pulled himself back and hunched over, watching his finger with a look of fascination on his face. Hux held his tongue, but Ben gave him a quick, dark look anyway, sensing Hux’s amusement.

In revenge, Ren twisted his finger, one of his knuckles grazing Hux’s prostate. It surprised a moan from Hux, and he wondered vaguely whether the Senators could hear them having sex from the hallway.

 _Oh yes_ , Ben confirmed. _Louder, Hux. I want them to hear it._

And so Hux let himself go, gasping and grunting, groaning, vocalizing far louder than he ever had. Because Ben had asked, and because he was doing wonderful things with his finger, knew exactly how to touch Hux. Of course he did. He would.

Hux only got louder as Ben pushed the second finger in, which was uncomfortable for far longer than it should have been, but Ben’s tongue worked at his rim, his balls, up and down the length of his leaking, aching dick.

“Ren, stop,” he gasped. “Just… you have to stop.”

His finger paused, and he pressed his lips against Hux’s erection, exhaling and causing Hux to squirm. “Or what, General? Why would I do that?”

Hux looked down the length of his body at him, through the mess of his hair, furious. “Or I’ll come, Ren. I’m quite aroused. I wish to last.”

Ben _hmmmmmm_ ed against his dick, and Hux jerked, but Ben used the movement to reposition himself, obediently kissing up the length of a thigh, pouring more lubricant into his hand and working Hux open further. It was on the cusp of uncomfortable still, but Hux couldn’t take any more.

“Do you remember-” He trailed off, gasping, wondering how much of Hux’s memories Ben shared. The thought hurt him, and he pushed it down, asked anyway. “Do you remember the first time we did this?”

Ben paused, fingers in Hux’s ass, mouth against his thigh. He sucked a mark into the sensitive skin, then sighed against it. “Yes. I do.”

“You remember… what you did. To remove the pain.”

“Yes.”

“Can you do that?”

“Because you’re a virgin?”

Hux felt the amusement, and pushed himself up on his elbows to glare. “Keep talking. I can finish myself off. I don’t need you.”

“You do, though.” Ben pulled his fingers out, and Hux clenched at their absence. He stayed propped on his elbows to watch Ben slick his cock, still as large and impressive as it had always been. “You came all the way here to get fucked, Hux.”

Ben leaned forward and Hux let himself lay back against the table. He moved his feet (still in boots, he noticed sullenly) up on Ben’s shoulders to pull himself up to the right angle. Ben leaned further forward and forced Hux’s legs back, lining his cock up as he did so. He only pushed into Hux briefly before he stopped, wincing. Hux smirked, and he felt Ren’s annoyance.

“Is it a _little much_ , Ren? Are you enjoying sex with me? Having a hard time keeping yourself under control?” Hux was sweating and panting, sure he looked like a flushed, disheveled mess, but he was beyond caring. This was too much of exactly what he wanted, and he couldn’t stop taunting Ben, couldn’t stop the emotion that felt like it was overflowing between them.

Ben growled, laying a lube-slicked hand in Hux’s hair, defiantly pushing his cock in with a single slow thrust. Hux didn’t feel the pain, but he did feel the stretch, and it was tight. Very tight.

“Ren,” he gasped, and it came out weaker than he intended.

“Hux,” the response, just as weak, just as lost.

Something inside Hux twisted and broke, and he repositioned himself, wrapping his legs around Ben’s waist, his arms around his neck, hiding his face as Ren pulled out and pushed back in slowly, so slowly.

It was tight, and hot, and both of them gasped with it. Their sex was normally fast, methodical. They fucked when one or the other needed it. They shared a bed. They hadn’t shared this in some time. Hux felt the wetness of Ben’s face against his own neck, and he tightened his grip around his neck.

They stayed like that, embracing, Hux getting fucked slowly on the meeting table in the rooms of the New Republic Senate. At some point, his teacup hit the floor and shattered, and he barely noticed.

Ben was in his mind, around and inside his body, and he felt like the galaxy made sense again. It was weakness, and it was infuriating, but it was also the only thing he wanted in the moment.


	10. Part Two: Yonec - Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter picks up immediately after chapter 8.

**Fourteen Years Ago…**

  
Hux couldn’t eat the soup, and complained bitterly about the waste of food - wasting food was one of the few things Hux couldn't bring himself to do, even in the New Republic. Ben had eaten both portions to humor him, and charged the meals to Leia Organa. Hux had never seen anyone eat so much in one sitting, though Ben seemed unaffected by the excess. It pleased Hux that the expensive meals were charged to a New Republic Senator, which seemed fitting.

They walked back to the hotel from the restaurant, taking hours to do so, though neither Hux nor Ben mentioned getting a transport. The day was warm, and Ben’s robes were too loose and coarse, but Hux thought they suited the day better than his uniform. The sun was affecting them both, and Hux sorely missed his cap, though it was easy enough to stay under the shade of buildings and transports in Republic City.

After they'd been walking for an hour or so, Ben steered them into an open area with sidewalk vendors and bought Hux bread and water. There was a joke at his expense in there somewhere, but the bread was soft and delicious, and the water was the cleanest Hux had ever tasted. At least the New Republic could do some things right. He had still been hungry after the unsatisfying lunch, though hadn’t mentioned it. He was surprised that Ben had thought of it, and the scrutiny troubled him for reasons he couldn't pin down. He avoided Ben’s eyes, who watched him consume the meal in silence as they walked.

When they finally reached the hotel in late afternoon, the privacy was a relief to both of them. They proceeded to experiment with fingers, Hux finding that he could come alarmingly fast with Ben’s shoved in his mouth far enough to gag him. While recovering, they both drifted off to sleep early, lying amid the mess they'd made of the bed. Hux found that he was growing less opposed to the smell, the mess, the heavy bulk of Ben in his bed, and the tangible presence of Ben in his mind.

When they woke up, Ben tried to give Hux a blowjob again, only to gag dramatically. He did not vomit, which Hux marked as an improvement, and used as an excuse to give Ben his own celebratory blowjob. Hux jerked himself to completion when Ben came down his throat, thick cock throbbing between his lips. He rested his head in Ben’s lap afterwards, speechless, as Ben stroked his fingers through his hair and pressed into his mind, promising he felt it too.

Hux didn’t want or need to know what “it” was.

Ben offered to pay for their trip to the Outer Rim, which was good, because Hux didn’t have the money to get to his new posting from Exitens. But he knew where Exitens was, and how to take the hyperspace transports to get there. Ben paid for a private suite for the two of them on the shuttle to the Outer Rim. It was expensive, but Hux let Ben indulge. And in the privacy of their transport rooms, Ben taught Hux the names of all the sword forms, and Hux memorized them for the Stormtrooper program.

“So do you do the training yourself?” Ben asked, curious and impressed, and also shirtless. They hadn’t used the rooms for anything more private than Ben’s workout, though the thought was on both their minds. They had plenty of time to enjoy each other in bed, since it took over a full cycle to go between Hosnian Prime and Exitens. But neither were tired, both charged with a kind of restlessness that made it difficult to settle into any activity. Hux’s own restlessness was an easy thing to diagnose - taking Ben to a First Order action area was a foolish risk. If this went poorly, Ben could bring the New Republic to the planet and give up their presence there, along with all the secrets Hux should never have whispered to him.

But if the risk paid off? Ben’s ignorance seemed genuine, and Hux wondered how he would react to the bare truth of what they were trying to do. He told himself it was unlikely that Ben would hop into the transport with Hux and go straight to the Laymar base with him. But then, Ben had managed to surprise him in every way. What if he did?

“Not in the way you’re thinking, I’m sure.” Hux eyed Ben’s lightsaber hilt, the silver length and the wire that ran down the shaft. Ben stood in the center of the room, flushed and sweating. Hux was seated on the bed, back in his partial uniform, his datapad in his lap to make notes. “I collect combat data from past First Order missions, or I have recruits demonstrate the combat techniques and weapons used on their home worlds. Then I build simulations that the Troopers are drilled in and scored on. Along with the simulations, they have mock battles together, and we do battle exercises and live training.”

“Troopers,” Ben said flatly. “The Stormtroopers.”

Hux shrugged, picking up on Ben’s distaste. “The training programs already existed, as did the armor and weapons. We’ve made it better.”

“And it’s not just… you and whoever runs the thing pretending to be the Empire all over again?”

Hux snorted. “The Empire served the interests of Sheev Palpatine, who personally manipulated the Senate into giving him his power. The laws of the Empire, and how well it governed its territories, were subject to his whims and a great deal of corruption. We seek to bring order, uniformity, equal opportunities, and safety to all worlds. The New Republic seems to have no interest in such things.”

Ben gave him a weary look, fiddling with the hilt of his lightsaber. “Are you sure you aren’t some fringe fanatic? I’ve heard rumors of something going on in the Outer Rim.”

“What kind of rumors?” It was sharper than Hux intended, and not really a question. Ben raised an eyebrow.

“Worried? Because you’re doing something you shouldn’t be?”

Hux leaned back on his hands, feigning ease, trying not to appear too defensive. “There’s nothing evil in what we do, Ben. I’m worried because, yes, the New Republic will want to stop us without investigating. It’s not in their design to have worlds not join in and sing their praises.”

Ben rolled his eyes and went back to fiddling with the wire on his lightsaber hilt. “Tell me what you really think.”

Hux face colored, and he realized he was laying it on too thick. “Of course I believe in what I’m doing. Don’t you?”

A dark look crossed Ben’s features, and he didn’t look up at Hux, choosing to remain silent.

“What rumors, Ben?”

Hux felt the pressure in the back of his mind, a kind of reluctance. Ben’s presence in his thoughts was convenient, as it meant that he didn’t have to decipher what Ben was feeling. He was embarrassed about something.

Ben turned the dark look on him. “My mother, okay? I heard the rumors from my mother. She’s been investigating reports in the Outer Rim, of… a standing military. Ships, Stormtroopers, an organization ready to wage a war. She’s not getting the support she needs to investigate, despite the planets reporting… oppression.”

Hux snorted. “We’re not prepared to wage a war against the New Republic.” _Yet_. “We use our resources to enforce peace on warring planets.”

“Whose peace?”

“One that benefits the citizens,” Hux answered thinly. “They are the ones who suffer during power struggles, are they not?”

“And what about the ones who are complaining to the New Republic?”

Hux shrugged, indifferent. “You can’t please everyone.”

Hux sat on the edge of the bed, spinning the handle of the lightsaber between his fingers. “They said you kidnap children,” he answered lightly, and Hux could feel it was a real comment, something that troubled him. As if Hux went around snatching babies from their cradles.

“ _Please_. We do not kidnap children. Those are more lies told by dissidents. We do heavy recruiting on planets. We take anyone who volunteers, and many parents are happy to send their children to a life where they are educated, or even reliably given food and water, clothing and shelter. It’s a better life than most of them lead.”

“And you can’t see why that would upset people? What that looks like?”

“Ben,” Hux said, impatient, growing more angry. “How do you think I was raised? In some mansion house, with my father the fat, corrupt Moff torturing and enslaving the citizens of a planet?” He was letting Ben upset his composure again, and he knew better. But while he could easily picture his father in the role, as unkind as Hux could be about his father and vice versa, he knew his father wasn’t corrupt. His father believed. “I had the exact same training as the troopers, and additional leadership courses. So no, I don’t see why that would upset people.”

Ben turned red, and Hux could sense Ben's growing embarrassment, and his own irrational anger. He didn’t know why these accusations from Ben stung. But he needed to let it go. He took a breath, closed his eyes, let the subject drop.

Hux didn’t know why he was even answering to this ridiculous propaganda. He let out his breath, sitting up and activating his datapad again. He wasn’t going to convince him this way, not if Ben thought he was some sort of kidnapper.

Ben turned to him. “You know, I’m getting better at reading your thoughts.”

“Oh?” Hux scrolled through the holonet, looking for news of Exitens. Predictably, there was none.

“I can tell you're careful about what you tell me, to get me to think and act in a certain way.”

“Of course I do.” Hux’s gaze flicked briefly over from his screen, then back. “I want you to agree with me and listen to me. I know what I’m talking about.”

Hux also scanned for mentions of Laymar, where he would be stationed next. Also nothing, which was good. He began systematically investigating all the territories, to see their representation in the New Republic news feeds.

“I mean… I can read your thoughts, Hux. I know _you_  believe it.”

“Of course I do,” he snapped. “I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t.”

“You’re not doing it because you were born there? Because your father was… some sort of infamous ex-Imperial? Because you’ve been doing it your entire life, and it’s all you know?”

Hux set his pad down, giving his full attention to Ben. This was delicate, and he had to think on his response for a moment. He searched Ben’s eyes, and gave him the most sincere answer he could. “That’s all true, yes. But I also built my own life there, and earned everything in it for myself. I wouldn’t be here, on leave after the end of my training, soon to start my own post, if I lacked conviction or belief. I’d be a file clerk somewhere.” He paused, still studying Ben’s eyes. “I’d be deeply unhappy, because I’d be wasting myself and my life. I think what I do with the Order, and their goals, are the right thing. And I improve both myself and the Order by pushing the limits of what we do.”

Ben snorted, looking back down at his lightsaber hilt. “You improve it by writing simulations that other people fight to. You don’t do any of the other things.”

Hux stood, crossing the few steps to Ben and putting a hand to his face, forcing him to turn and look at him. He pushed down his anger, knowing that Ben would sense that the insult hit home. “It’s all part of the Order. Those simulations make those Troopers better soldiers. When they go to planets to break up petty wars, they survive and come back, and they win. The more I learn, and the more I teach them, the better we all are.”

Hux didn’t add that loss of Trooper life was a major taboo. They spent so much money on each body, not to mention years of training. Those resources and bodies had been precious as the army grew. They couldn’t afford to waste them. He wondered if Ben would pick up on that.

He couldn’t tell if Ben did or not. Ben pushed past him and laid down in the bunk, rolling over to face the wall. Hux was mildly disgusted that Ben would get in the bed after a workout, but said nothing.

“You’re so sure. So confident,” Ben muttered, not looking at Hux.

“That’s because I’m right.”

Hux felt amusement and fondness in response, but Ben didn’t speak again. Hux went back to his holopad, hoping he’d understand soon.

 

* * *

 

There was one transport to Exitens a day, and it docked at the orbital station surrounding the planet - as far as Hux knew, there weren’t any spaceports on the planet itself. From there, Ben and Hux rode a tiny, outdated shuttle to the northern settlement. Entering the atmosphere was an exciting experience, one that Hux was sure would end with the shields failing and the shuttle incinerated. But while the interior did get uncomfortably hot, the shields held well enough for re-entry. He kept his panic in check by taking in the reactions of the five dejected-looking Bith that rode in the shuttle with them.

“How do you know they’re dejected?” Ben asked out loud, right in front of them. Hux paused before answering, trying to decide between two sarcastic comments, but before he could answer, Ben continued. “Right, like that’s not a real question.”

The Bith didn't react, so he decided to indulge Ben.  “Posture,” Hux explained, rolling his eyes.

Ben stared across at one who appeared to be sleeping. “You’re so sure. But they’re aliens. Couldn’t they be different?”

“Sometimes. Expressions and gestures can be harder to read. But a lot of humanoids have the same tells for body language.”

“You’re an authority on that.”

“It’s important to understand body language and the mood of those around you, to know how they will respond to your command and how to lead them.”

 _Not all of us have the Force_ , he thought rather pointedly, and felt a spike of unhappy disapproval in the back of his mind, where Ben’s presence had lingered steadily for over a day now.

“It’s not like I use it for that. I can’t just…”

_Read minds?_

Ben scowled. “I can’t do that.”

_Except for me. Right now._

“Hux.”

“Have you tried?”

“Just on you.”

“And it was a success. Why don’t you try again now?”

Ben turned to look at him. “I… shouldn’t.” He closed his eyes, and his presence in Hux’s mind strengthened.

_It’s a power associated with the Dark side of the Force._

_And what’s the problem with that?_

_It’s evil. I’d be doing it against their wills. And the Dark side… it’s a hard path. Difficult to stop yourself once you start down it._

Hux found the transition to a conversation entirely in his head jarring, though was also pleased by Ben’s ability to do so. And it was more private. He closed his eyes and leaned back, concentrating on the feeling of Ben in his thoughts. _Isn’t it all power, in the end? If you can control it?_

_I can’t._

_You can. You’re doing it right now. There’s nothing dark about this, is there?_

_No, not with you. But you like it. And I don’t know them._

_You did this to me within ten minutes of our acquaintance._

_We were kissing._

_You can kiss a Bith, if you want._  

Ben was growing upset, and increasingly unsure of himself. Hux suppressed a smirk, pleased with the remark. Conversation with Ben was so easy. It was rare that he allowed himself a casual exchange like this - he had sometimes let Bariss distract him like this, but with Ben it was even better.

Pushing down his amusement, then reached over to lay a hand atop Ben's, curling their fingers together, leaving his eyes closed.

_You would know best. But you’d hardly be hurting them. Can’t you just get a sense of them, as we did in that park the first time, or like when we have sex?_

Hux sensed Ben's embarrassment at that. Then, the humming noise intensified in Hux’s mind, and he felt his awareness spreading, tapping into that of the Bith. There was wariness, exhaustion, and a kind of bone-deep depression suddenly ate Hux away from the inside. He took his hand from Ben’s with a jerk, gasping slightly and opening his eyes.

“Sorry!” Ben exclaimed, grabbing it back. “I… went too deep. I’m sorry.”

Hux took a breath, then two. Ben Solo was still the most remarkable individual he’d ever met. He needed him. He turned to stare, taking in his embarrassment, then reached out and squeezed his hand again. When Ben eyed him out of the corner of his eye, he smirked.

“You don’t have to apologize when you prove me right, Ben.”

As the transport drew closer to the northern settlement, the air in the transport grew more humid. Hux had done few enough planetary landings to be unsure if a transport this old evened out the atmosphere and air pressure by design, or if something had failed on the vessel upon re-entry and the atmosphere was equalizing naturally. Or, perhaps, the vessel was overheating and failing, and they were about to crash. The settlement was in a jungle, and Hux told himself the atmosphere inside the transport was supposed to be like a jungle, but he’d never been to one himself.

The compartment also began to fill with the stink of sulfur. He compared that to his memories of the failing Star Destroyers, but didn’t think that was a mechanical element failing, other than the ventilation and pressure stabilizer.

Ben seemed amused by his agitation. “Do you really think this transport is going to crash and kill us?”

“Are you sure it isn’t?” he snapped in return.

Ben shrugged, unperturbed, looking out the small viewport to the left of the Bith. “Pretty sure. I mean, a lot of old shuttles are like this. Is everything so new and modern in the First-”

“ _Stop_ ,” Hux hissed, darting a glance at the Bith, not wanting Ben to hint at their purpose. He touched his hat self-consciously, reassuring himself that he wasn’t wearing any of the insignia. “No. We have plenty of old tech.”

“You act like you’ve never been on one before.” When Hux was silent, a grin spread across Ben’s face. “You haven’t. You’re afraid.”

“I’m not afraid,” Hux returned. “I just don’t trust this piece of shit transport.”

“Don’t trust it? Why?”

“Because it will kill us.”

Ben leaned in, smirking. “And how would you say you feel about that?”

“Angry.” This was a lie, and Ben knew it, but Hux would kill Ben with his bare hands if he pressed the point. Ben laughed, settling back in his seat and stretching his legs out in a show of easiness.

“So you haven’t ridden in an old transport before?”

Hux scowled at him, wrapping his hands around the edge of the seat, refusing to wipe at the sweat collecting on his face. “No.” He thought about telling Ben about the star destroyers, but didn’t really want to think about all the ways the _Subjugator_  had failed that would be much more deadly on a smaller vessel. So he gave a simpler response. “I don’t ride in ships this small, usually.”

“Oh. Right. You’d need to carry your tr- uh, the other people around.” Hux looked at him, but didn’t correct him. Ben continued, rolling a shoulder, and seemed to take some pity on him. “A lot of small transports are like this. The one on Hab-118 is unstable too. It's my uncle's perpetual repair project. My father’s ship is larger, but riding it in is a lot like this.” Ben paused. "That one's also an ongoing repair project."

Hux looked away again, out the window, trying to decide if the airspeed was terminal. He fought the temptation to retrieve emergency landing gear, but did strap himself into his crash webbing.

“It’s not going down.”

“Why is it so hot? And why does it smell?” The question was out of Hux’s mouth before he could take it back.

“That’s probably what it’s like outside.”

“Just because a transport has never overheated and killed you, personally, does not mean it won't happen now.”

Ben considered this. “I guess. But it won't. You're the one that told me it was going to be hot. You said that’s why you were wearing your uniform instead of the robes.”

Hux didn’t reply, and he glanced at the Bith, part of him wanting one of them to speak up and clarify the planetary conditions. But they remained silent and stationery. Hux was the only one that used the crash webbing.

When the two minute warning sounded, the Bith stood and slowly began to disrobe. Hux watched in fascination as their robes were removed and folded neatly into their satchels. They weren’t wearing anything underneath, and had simply stripped naked, leaving only the heavy-duty boots on their feet. Bith all appeared to have a single nipple in the center of their chests, and a smooth place where human genitalia would be. Absently, Hux wondered how their bodies rid themselves of waste.

Ben was growing more and more uncomfortable. “Why are they getting naked?”

“If it’s hot, maybe they don’t wear clothes here,” Hux explained, pulling up the infosheet on his holopad and scanning it again. “I don’t have data on that.”

“You think they don’t wear clothes on the whole planet?”

“I don’t know about the whole planet. The settlements, maybe. I think those are the only populated areas, though we haven't gone elsewhere.”

Hux shrugged, then stood, removing his crash webbing. Though the ship still shuddered around him, he was sick of Ben's amusement at his expense, and decided to make up for his embarrassing inexperience by imitating the Bith. He removed his shirt and suspenders, pulling the cuff of his jodhpurs out of his boots and undoing the snap closures around his calves so he could pull them off without the hassle of taking off his boots. He decided to keep his cap to shade his face from the sun. Presently, he was stripped down to his cap, boots, and underwear. He casually folded his uniform pieces and tucked them under his arm, throwing his blaster belt and holster over his shoulder. The blaster wasn't one he was familiar with from the Order. He'd asked Ben to buy one before they'd boarded the transport, not wanting to go to Exitens without one. Ben had happily complied, the two of them going to a dealer together, Hux choosing a model that seemed fairly reliable, considering the lack of armament in the New Republic.

“Well?” he said expectantly, looking down at the still-seated Ben Solo, who was staring at him in disbelief. Ben had re-dressed himself in the full layers of his Jedi robes, despite Hux's warning about the heat, and was currently completely covered save for his head and hands.

“You really… you’re going to go down there naked?” He dropped his eyes to Hux’s briefs. “Except for that?”

“They’re called underwear, Ben, and I’m horrified you don’t wear them. But I don’t care what the custom is, I’m not exposing myself." He entertained a brief mental image of striding naked through a jungle under a blistering sun, his skin overheating and burning all over. He resisted the urge to put a hand to his crotch.

“I don’t have underwear,” Ben stated petulantly.

“I know you don't. But you’ll stand out in clothes.” Hux frowned, evaluating whether or not it would be a problem. “I suppose we can see how much notice you attract like that.”

Ben swiped the back of his hand across his forehead. Both of them were already soaked with sweat. “I’ll be fine like this.”

“Then you can hold my blaster.” He removed the holster from his belt and handed it to Ben, who, Hux was amused to note, dutifully threaded it onto his belt opposite his lightsaber.

Hux sat back down, the sweat and humidity causing his bare skin to slide uncomfortably across the metal seat. He shuddered at the thought of all the bare Bith asses that had touched it over the years.

“You can use Force misdirection, as you did before,” Hux mused. “If you want to be comfortable, but don’t want them to see you naked.”

Ben was visibly annoyed by the suggestion. “That’s still something I’m not supposed to do. It’s Dark.”

“I thought it was called a Jedi mind trick.”

“Uncle Luke says that the decision to use it is a slippery slope, and not one we should consider except as a life-or-death emergency. It’s a fast path to the Dark side.”

“And is that decision ultimately Luke Skywalker’s to make? Who says whether he’s right or wrong?”

“He’s…” Ben trailed off, and shrugged uncomfortably again, not meeting Hux’s eye. “He’s Uncle Luke. He has more experience.”

“Ben, I don’t care about whether something is light or dark, only if it is useful. Will you harm them by making them forget you aren’t naked?”

The shuttle came to a stuttering halt, dropping uncomfortably firmly onto the landing pad, and the Bith rose slowly, shuffling over to the exit. Ben studied them, still not looking at Hux as he replied. “No, but it’s… the more I do it, the easier it becomes.”

“I’d hate for you to become good at something you already enjoy doing. Especially something this useful.”

“You’re not stupid,” Ben answered loudly, finally upset, turning to glare at Hux. “You can see how manipulating the minds of other beings isn’t something I should be doing.”

Hux turned to him and raised his brows, then stood, stretching and appreciating the feel of Ben’s eyes on his back.

“Of course. It’s not something I do every day, by watching and evaluating reactions to the things I say and do. It’s not a skill I build on, much more slowly, as I try to explain the benefits of my organization to new recruits. Your mind-reading abilities certainly aren’t something I covet horrendously for use in my own life.” He turned back around, giving Ben a pointed stare. “Do you think I’m a bad person?”

Ben bit his lip, shaking his head. “You’re trying to manipulate me right now.”

“You make it difficult. You either see my point, or you do not.”

“I see it,” he muttered, pushing his sweat-damp hair out of his face and standing.

“You obviously don’t concede it.” He turned and walked to the door, where the ramp had lowered to disgorge the miserable Bith.

“You’re not right.”

“I’m always right. I wouldn’t say it unless I was sure.”

 

* * *

 

The spaceport facilities building was the only structure visible when they exited the transport, that and the landing pad making a solid gray duracrete oasis in the middle of a dense, towering jungle in a riot of colors that Hux had never seen together before, unrelieved by the industrial grays and blacks of artificial construction and tech. There was predominantly one type of tree, an enormous species with a smooth brown trunk that reached to a distant canopy, where numerous large branches intertwined with one another, sprouting green leaves far above that appeared to be larger than Hux. The trunks had vines that wrapped around and climbed almost to the canopy, enormous pale pink flowers in full bloom hanging heavily from them. The air was thick, humid and foggy yellow, scented with a sickening mix of sulfur and the sweet cloying scent of the flowers.

As Ben came down the ramp, Hux watched the Bith trudge along a winding path through the trees, eventually disappearing in the dark shade of the jungle floor. He pulled his datapad out of his clothing bundle and once again called up information about the settlement. Ben stepped to his side, practically radiating a foul mood.

“So. Now that we’re here, what did you want to show me?”

Hux could sense that Ben was already annoyed by the heat, the air temperature, the fact that Hux was standing in front of him naked, where anyone could see. He would need to make his point quickly, or risk losing Ben’s interest.

“I want to show you how they live.” He tapped in a brief request, then stowed the datapad, moving to the head of the path the Bith had used and staring up into the treetops above. “This is one of the planets we - the Order - are attempting to aid at present.” He began moving down the path and into the thick darkness between the trees.

“Okay,” Ben said impatiently, following him. “Why did we have to come all the way here? Why couldn’t you just tell me in the room in Republic City?”

“Because you wouldn’t have believed me, or wouldn’t have understood,” Hux said, voice mild as he studied the treetops. “And you strike me as a compassionate person. Perhaps literally, if you can read the minds of those around you. Seeing how this planet is being exploited will be much more effective than having you forget it immediately, in favor of having sex with me.”

He could sense Ben was angry, and struggling furiously against Hux’s logic. “Well, where are these supposed suffering aliens, Hux? I don’t see any of them here.”

Hux glanced over his shoulder, but continued walking, his boots sinking into the soft dirt of the path. “You don’t already see that there might be a problem, that people live in this jungle, with no spaceport, and need to move off-world in that dated heap of a transport?”

“I don’t live here,” Ben said, irritated, as he pushed his sweaty hair out of his face. “I assume whatever does adapted to this planet a long time ago. Or maybe you landed on the hottest part, during the worst time of the year, to trick me. Besides,” he grumbled, "I use a transport like that too, and it gets hot on Hab-118."

Hux rolled his eyes. "I doubt very much that the Jedi live with any sort of actual hardships. And I wouldn’t-” he stopped himself. He wanted to say he wouldn’t risk Ben finding him in a lie like that. He buried the thought, and finished. “I wouldn’t have brought you here unless I thought the situation was truly wretched. This is the coolest part of the planet. There are only two areas that were colonized, at either pole. The rest is scorched rock and sulfur wastewater.”

“Homey,” Ben bit out. “What kind of beings are native?”

“None that we know of, though we haven't ventured far past the settlements.” Hux stopped at the base of a tree and looked up, disbelieving the height of the thing. He’d never seen an organic structure so large. “We're interested in the species that colonized it. Humans, Dry Dornans, and Clorohelions were brought in a few hundred years ago.”

Ben paused, and Hux could feel his surprise. “Humans live here? On the surface? They must have adapted, or brought a lot of tech with them.”

“Not really. That’s part of the problem. It's hot, which Humans can adapt to, but they usually have assistive tech. These settlements do not. They also lack proper water and nutrition, and-” Hux wrinkled his nose and coughed. Whatever yellow substance was floating in the air was irritating his nose and throat, and the sulfur stench of the planet was borderline unbearable. He hadn't anticipated how truly awful it would be. He pushed the brim of his hat up and used a thumb to wipe under the band, for what little good it did. He hoped Ben was a fast learner.

He brought out his datapad, and saw a confirmation from his earlier request. He sighed, turning from the wide trunk of the tree to Ben. “We’re going to have a meeting with the planet’s representative. Their primary goals are... unrelated to our concerns about their well-being.”

“A meeting?” Ben was even more surprised, but then his eyes narrowed. “Why would a representative meet with us? We’re nobody.”

They weren't really nobody. Not even himself, Hux liked to think, though he wasn’t going to argue the point with Ben right now. “I sent the request from the First Order network, and they are always very eager to…” Hux trailed off, annoyed all over again by the conflict. “Receive our assistance.”

Ben looked skeptical. “Okay.” He turned, gesturing dramatically to the empty forest. “So, how do we get to this meeting? Where is this city at?”

Hux pointed above his head. “All the residences are in the canopy. We have to climb the vines. The file notes this. One note for every First Order diplomat that’s visited, in fact.”

Ben frowned. “Why didn’t they build the city at ground level?”

“You’ll have to ask them,” Hux answered, equally annoyed, as he grabbed one of the thick violet vines and pulled. They seemed to be rooted to the tree much more solidly than they looked. He tried as hard as he could to pull the root system from the smooth pale bark, but it would not give. He studied it a moment longer, then used his belt to fasten his folded uniform around his waist and began climbing the vines.

The climb was long, and Hux was two years out of his physical training. He could do it, climb the tree and more, but he hated it, had moved beyond these physical trials. Ben climbed silently underneath of him, radiating the same kind of annoyance at the heat and exertion. The canopy kept whatever passed for the sky and sun from both of them, so Hux was spared the merciless sunburn against his exposed back, but the air only grew more damp and unbreathable as they climbed higher, and the smell of the flowers was overpowering and cloying at such a close range. The largest of the blossoms was nearly the size of his torso.

There were also green, fist-sized insects that made a high buzzing noise as they flitted from flower to flower. Hux found them irritating, but tried his best to stay clear of them, itching to pull out his datapad to find out if they were dangerous. His hands were sweaty and slick, though the soft, mealy texture of the vines provided a good grip. He followed the insects with his eyes as he drew himself further up the trunk.

When Hux finally reached the thick branches in the canopy, he pulled himself up onto a narrow one, straddling it gingerly and looking around.

The branches tangled together at the top, a thick layer of the vines and flowers hanging from the bottoms of the limbs in long trails that turned brown and tattered not far from the branches. The tops of the limbs were bare, well-worn paths that led from tree to tree. Sprouting from the neatly kept network of smaller pathway limbs were enormous green leaves, each nearly the size of a full-grown human. Nestled between the limbs and branches were the businesses and residences that made up the settlement. They were all surprisingly large, each with open doorways but no windows. Hux could see that they were made from some sort of clay or earth, dried and wrapped in the enormous leaves from the canopy. The leaves, when cut, dried to a blackish-brown color and developed a waxy texture. The buildings stood out among the green of the tree canopy.

The settlement was also eerily deserted. There was no one walking the paths between the limbs, no conversation, no stirrings inside the dwellings. Only the occasional call of some avian high above the dwellings, the thick buzzing of the insects below them, and the occasional cacophonous rustle of leaves as a sluggish wind stirred the thick, rank air around them. The yellow miasma had thinned as they climbed higher, but the awful sulfur smell remained.

Hux grunted, looking around and waiting for someone from the settlement to notice them as Ben pulled himself onto a nearby limb. After sitting several moments with the bark of the tree digging into the inside of his thighs, none came. Not wanting to appear clueless to Ben, he pulled himself up to stand on the limb, removed his belt and tucked the bundle of clothing neatly under his arm, then followed the map on his datapad to the representative’s building.

Hux was unsure if the building was a residence or office, or if there was a difference here. He also wasn't clear what the etiquette was for entering - the diplomatic protocols for this planet required higher clearance than he had. The building didn't look any more occupied than the other silent dwellings in the settlement, but the Representative had confirmed, so Hux knew that they were at least present.

There was no door, so lacking protocol, he strode confidently into the hut, looking around and letting his eyes adjust to the low light of the room. Ben bumped into him from behind, steadying him with an indiscreet hand on Hux’s waist. Hux found the sticky touch annoyingly proprietary and unnecessary. He knew his annoyance was irrational, that Ben was taking any reason he could to touch Hux, and Hux should encourage that. But he was burning with the indignity of meeting with a planetary representative in his underwear and boots, sweat covering his body along with green and yellow smears of whatever was on those vines. He pushed his feelings down and took a step away from Ben, surveying the inside of the plain building. There was a screen that blocked a part of the room, and a low stove next to a chest near that. The walls were painted a dark blue, though the paint was streaky, the brown of the mud and leaf visible underneath. There was another cabinet against a different wall, large enough to walk into, and a table and chairs in the center of the dwelling. That was it. It furnishings were similar to (if not better than) the living quarters Hux had occupied growing up, but the lack of furniture was still striking after his stay in the New Republic. He straightened his posture incrementally, reminding himself that he wasn't in the New Republic anymore.

The local liaison for N-1-Exitens was in the center of the plain room, partially reclined in a simple chair that was behind a large, sturdy table that had a large, out-of-place datapad resting in its center. She wore a loose one-piece tunic that appeared to be woven from the dry brown vines Hux saw draped from the high limbs of the trees, knee-length, stiff-looking and awkward. Her head was shaved, her face thin, with a prominent nose and strong chin and eyes that watched him with suspicion, dark and wide and mistrustful. She was heavily pregnant, and rested both hands on her wide belly. Hux studied her curiously. Pregnancy was becoming less of a rarity in First Order culture as Hux’s generation reached adulthood, but he had still only seen the condition personally a few times.

He inclined his head, pressing his empty hand to his chest in a gesture of greeting. “Representative Cobalt, I thank you for this audience.”

“Did you bring the weapons to stop the southern raid?” she replied in an overly loud and heavily accented voice, and it took Hux a moment to recover from the abrupt question. He decided to ignore it, in favor of leading into the intended visit properly. She hadn't invited them to sit, so they stood awkwardly near the open doorway.

“My name is Lieutenant Armitage Hux, and I’ve brought the Jedi Ben Solo with me. I hoped you could tell Ben Solo about the economy on Exitens, and the struggles you face.”

“Struggles.” She sneered, and shifted uncomfortably. “If you can’t help with the southern raid tonight, then I don’t need to waste my breath.”

Hux turned to Ben, eyebrows raised. Ben merely looked blank and confused, obviously unsure what to make of Cobalt. Since he was no help, Hux attempted to coax more of a story out of Cobalt.

“Jedi Solo is very powerful, and may be able to aid you with his powers. But you’ll have to explain the need first. He’s reluctant to act, unless the cause is a good one.”

“Those southern sweatstains.” She sat forward, a look of hatred crossing her features as she gazed past them and out the door of the dwelling. “They’re going to take our nutrient supply, and probably destroy our distillers. We’ll die. We need help.”

"The planet has no potable water," Hux explained in a low voice, leaning closer to Ben. "The distillers are necessary for producing enough drinking water daily." He could sense that Ben was still confused by this. Admittedly, he was as well. He turned back to Cobalt. “Your need is well-known in the First Order,” he answered carefully, not at all sure what to do about her insistence, though the data had been clear enough about what the settlements asked for most regularly. But he didn't care about the ongoing conflict between the two settlements. He wanted her to talk about the First Order, and what they were doing to help. “You are aware of how we struggle with getting supplies to you through the Munn blockade.”

“Munn blockade be damned.” Her face became more animated, enraged, as she turned her ire on Hux. “I’ve talked to three of you, and you’ve all promised me that you could cure our diseases, bring us more food and better water. I don’t care about that, I just want you to stop the raids. Everything else is fine. And you keep telling me about the-” she waved a hand above her head, “-the _Munn blockade_ , as if that has anything to do with what I ask.” She sat back, wiping a hand across her sweaty face. “That is my need. Kill the southerners.”

Hux could tell that Ben was lost, still had no idea what was going on. He could attempt to steer the Representative’s explanations away from whatever it was she was demanding aid for, could try to ask questions that might clarify the situation on the planet. But it would be better if Ben did it himself, though he would likely only receive clarification on the silly settlement in-fighting. Still, it would give Ben a feel for the conditions on the planet, which was the point of the expedition.

“Jedi Solo,” he said, turning to Ben. “Perhaps you should make your own inquiries, since it is your… Jedi skills that the Representative asks for. Negotiation and combat. Correct?”

Ben looked at him, the same blank look on his face, the nervousness creeping back into his consciousness that had been there when he’d first met Hux.

 _Confidence_ , Hux thought pointedly at him, narrowing his eyes. _You have what she needs. You don’t need to be nervous in front of her. Be confident._

Ben took a deep breath and closed his eyes, visibly centering himself. Hux felt the confusion and nervousness drain away, replaced by a more natural curiosity.

“Why are you wearing clothes? Hux said that everyone here goes naked.”

Hux closed his eyes briefly and sent a volley of mental curses Ben’s way. Ben did not respond.

Cobalt shifted again, the leaves that made up the brown garment rattling around her, and she settled her hands once again on her belly. “We do not clothe ourselves, no. But those who are with child wear garments to signify and celebrate their condition. It’s an old tradition.”

Ben nodded. Hux clenched his jaw, and begged him mentally to ask something more relevant. Instead, Ben turned to him, a glint in his eye.

"You're a Lieutenant?"

" _Jedi Solo_ ," Hux grit out, a warning. The corner of Ben's mouth quirked up, and Hux thought that Ben was growing entirely too comfortable with him. And how could a senator's son be so badly behaved at a meeting like this.

Whether because he had read Hux's thought or because he was finally taking the meeting seriously, the amusement vanished from Ben's face and he turned back to Cobalt. “The… southerners,” he asked. “Who are they?”

“The other settlement, N-2-Exitens,” she insisted, gesturing impatiently. “They live on the other side of the planet.”

When he could feel more confusion from Ben, Hux clarified. “The south pole settlement. It's identical to this one.”

“They are _not_  the same,” the representative insisted, growing more agitated. “They’re ruthless _thieves_ , layabouts who can’t be bothered to collect their own food. They raid ours, steal from our very mouths. They take our chlorohelions.” She gestured to the doorway, and Hux jumped when he saw a multi-vined plant approximately the size of an adult human. It was rooted to the wall and floor, and appeared to be leaning into the slat of light that fell in through the door, a dark blue delicate-petaled blossom turned upward. He wasn’t sure how he had missed it, and he recognized it immediately as the third sentient species that had been introduced to the planet.

“Chlorohelions?” Ben inquired. “You… own them?”

“We do not own them,” she snapped, clearly lacking the tolerance for basic questions and growing impatient with them. “They live with our families for generations. But the southerners take them, from the trees, our own houses.” Her tone had changed to something that sounded genuinely grief-stricken. She shook her head, wiping the sweat away from her face again. “It is monstrous. They’ll come and steal our children next if they aren't stopped.”

Hux frowned. The file had mentioned the close relationship between Humans and Chlorohelions, but not that one of the settlements was kidnapping the other species. Ben seemed equally disturbed by this news. “You… said they were coming tonight?”

“I don’t know.” She had calmed, though it was unclear why. “Probably. We can’t risk being wrong. But-” She swallowed, her expression tensing again. Hux thought it odd how frequently her mood shifted, and how intensely she wore it on her face. “The last raid was a blow. We lost lives after that, because of the destruction of the distillers. A lot of the others are weak, too weak to stay up all night.” She shook her head. “It will be so easy for them to take anything they want.”

“How are they so much more well-provisioned than you?”

Hux suppressed a snort. There were so many obvious answers to the question, and Ben had asked as if such a thing were inconceivable. The answer in this case, unfortunately, was fairly stupid.

“They destroyed our speeders during their last raid,” she said, her voice filled with sorrow. “And our pleas to the technicians to fix them were ignored. The urgent messages to fix the distillers went unanswered until today. But they refuse to repair the speeders. The southerners will kill us if they aren't stopped.”

Hux had looked into this at the beginning of the transport ride to the surface. The continent-to-continent speeders were not a priority for what the colonies were doing here, and their Munn masters had not seen fit to rush repairs on them. As the Representative seemed uninterested in commentary outside the scope of the attacks from the south, Hux kept the information to himself.

“Is the speeders the key to your defense?” Ben asked, still trying to puzzle his way through the conflict.

“No,” she retorted angrily, as if the answer was obvious. “We use it to attack the southern settlement and get supplies _back_. But when they killed the speeders guards in the last raid and destroyed the engine, we had no way to raid them back. We knew they’d be back in five days, and today is the fifth day.”

Ben blinked. “Five days? Why that interval?”

Cobalt rolled her eyes and spoke slowly, as if to a stupid child. “Because that’s how long it takes to go to the south and return.”

Hux suppressed a smirk, but really, this entire meeting was ridiculous, a mockery of diplomatic protocol. The Representative was making her case badly, obviously untrained - Hux understood that the Representative position was temporary on this planet. It was a terrible practice, and one followed at both colonies, though the colonists did little actual negotiation. The position was more of a liaison that ordered nutrients, repairs to the distillers, and coordinated the export of the flower pollen with the Munn and Bith. They did not treat diplomatically with outsiders. She was not explaining why she needed the help, and Ben was asking the wrong questions, only spurring the representative on to further folly.

Before he had to sit and listen to this further, he cut both of them off with a sudden question. “The Chlorohelions. The southerners are kidnapping them. Why? Is it simply to intimidate you?"

She stared at Hux as if he were an insect, and Hux suddenly hated her more. Ben was amused.

“They’re our _families_. They’re our life.”

When she didn’t explain further, Hux tried again. “Pretend we have never seen a Chlorohelion before. Tell me why they’re important here.”

“How could you not? Do your flowers not pollinate? Where do you get helion fruit? How did your mother give birth to you?”

Hux inhaled and held his breath to the count of three. “They pollinate, and you harvest their fruit. Do they have a medicinal use?”

“Yes. All of that!” She made an unusual trilling noise in her throat, and to Hux’s astonishment, the plant by the window stirred, pulling its roots out of the wall and floor with a groaning noise and a cloud of dust. It crawled across the floor on multiple vines and rested its enormous upward-facing bloom in her lap.

To Hux’s further astonishment, Cobalt thrust her head and a hand into the depths at the center of the flower. When she leaned back up, she was wiping yellow pollen off her face and licking her lips and fingers.

“The parent Chlorohelion stays inside our houses. There is drinkable water at the end of the day cycle, and each member of the household partakes. It’s sweeter than what the distillers produce. We come back to our houses to make waste, so the Chlorohelion can consume it.”

She gestured to a depression near the corner where the plant had been, and Hux shuddered.

“We take their vines and graft them to the ancestral trees. When they mature, they move among the suckle blooms, pollinating them along with the suckle bees.” She began idly stroking the petals of the blossom, dipping her finger inside and licking it. “The roots that work do not flower, only the soul plant in our households do that. They also give each household its supply of sweet helion fruit.” She moved one of her hands back to her belly. “When a new baby comes to the household, the soul plant is sacrificed. The flower is made into a medicine that takes away the pain of birth. The body of the chlorohelion is mixed with a paste that is given each child in their first month of life, along with the mother’s milk.”

“You _eat_  it?” Ben asked, horrified, his hands tightening at his sides as he shifted from foot to foot. “It’s sentient! You said it was your family!”

She frowned. “They are pleased to celebrate birth with us. We keep healthy helion stones from the fruit, and use its descendant roots to fertilize and nurture its seed. It is reborn in only two weeks, and in five years, we the soul plant can nurture a household once again. We are all named for them. I am part of the Cobalt clan, and my child will be as well.” She stroked the blue flower, a look of happiness on her face.

“It… knows you’re going to kill it.” Ben turned to Hux, distressed. “Haven’t you offered them any medicine, so they don’t have to eat the other species?”

“They don’t want our medicine,” Hux added quietly, turning to Cobalt. “We have medical tech that could do all that without killing the Chlorohelion. But you, or other representatives, have declined.”

“Of course,” she said, sneering. “Your First Order methods do not offer the Chlorohelion’s blessing on our households. And our children would have no Chlorohelion companions to grow with.”

“You’re eating them,” Ben explained, still horrified, still very patient, turning to Hux. “And they don’t have to.”

Hux shrugged. “The Munn never gave them medical tech, either. They’ve allowed the human colonists to work out this relationship with the Chlorohelions over the centuries.”

Ben shook his head. “What do the Munn have to do with this?”

“Nothing. They are the buyers,” Cobalt answered distractedly, still petting the giant flower in her lap.

Hux sighed, glancing briefly to Cobalt, then to Ben. “The Munn organized the colonization of the planet. The chemical components in the native suckle blossom pollen cures a common Munn heart disease. The discovery was revolutionary in the Munn species. They have three hearts, and the mortality rate was high." Hux huffed, still amused by the necessity, from the Munn standpoint. "The suckle flowers have a symbiotic relationship with the trees on this planet, which can’t be grown off-world or synthesized elsewhere. So they colonized this planet in order to harvest the pollen. They recruited Humans, Chlorohelions, and Dry Dornans for a combination of their survival and pollination skills. The Munn maintain enough distilling equipment in the two settlements to provide potable water for the population, and local Bith techs to keep it running. They also provide nutrient paste, so the Humans and Chlorohelions don’t die of malnutrition. Otherwise, the pollen is harvested and processed in the orbital station before the extract is shipped to Muunilist and Mygeeto. The Munn don’t care about the rest of it.”

“Nutrient paste?” Ben’s expression turned sour before he faced the rep again. “What do you eat here?”

The representative rolled her eyes again and spoke slowly, as if Ben was stupid, which of course he was. It was hard for Hux to believe that Ben had led a comfortable enough life that the thought of a population eating nutrient paste was unbelievable. “The fruit from Chlorohelions and from the foundation trees. The kigilli bird that nests in the canopy, and the suckle vines. We drink the water from the distillers, and also sometimes make Chlorohelion wine.”

“The paste is for vitamin content,” Hux elaborated, not adding that it could be a full meal. His stomach turned at the thought. The situation had caught his attention because the Order would be attempting to provide for a healthier diet and slowly transition the Human and Chlorohelion populations onto the imported resources and away from the nutrient paste. The thought that they were stealing even the paste from one another because there wasn't enough infuriated him, but he pushed the emotion down. “They lack vegetables in their diet, and also enough meat. That’s what the nutrients are for.”

“Why don’t the Munn just provide the food?” Ben was still confused, still not getting it. “Or… why don’t you buy it from off-world?”

“Buy it with what?” Cobalt asked, puzzled.

When Ben didn’t reply, Hux realized that the question was sincere, and answered slowly, unsure of the miscommunication himself. “They aren’t paid for the nectar. They simply do it. Do they not have colony worlds like this in the Republic?”

“Colony worlds like what? That are slaves for another species? Is this common?” Ben seemed to be getting increasingly upset. Hux frowned.

“Usually the arrangements are more symbiotic than this. We try to intervene when one is taking advantage of the other, as here. It’s not uncommon.”

“Intervene,” Ben muttered, shaking his head and looking back to Cobalt, who had stopped paying attention to them. “Muunilist and Mygeeto are member planets of the New Republic. They don’t keep slaves. This can’t be right.”

Hux shrugged. “They do. Obviously. You can understand why they wouldn’t tell others.”

“But how could they hide it? We monitor trade-”

“Ben,” Hux interrupted. “They run the InterGalactic Banking Clan. You don’t think they have the resources to make trade irregularities go away?”

“This isn’t just some trade irregularity,” Ben countered, his voice rising. He pushed his sweaty hair out of his face. “This is _slavery_. If it were… if it’s like you said, someone would have found it by now.”

“Out here?” Hux gestured expansively. “They aren’t trafficking in slaves, it’s all contained on this planet. How would they be found out?”

“We aren’t slaves, we’re free beings.” Cobalt broke in suddenly, shifting in her chair again. She made another trilling noise in her throat, and as the blue Chlorohelion rose and ambled away, she made a dismissive gesture with her hands.

“You’re annoying and ignorant,” she offered abruptly. “Either help us with the raid tonight, or leave. I’m tired of answering your questions.” She stood and rose slowly from the table, then walked over to the corner where the screen stood, concealing a bed. The bed was made, the frame stuffed with more of the stiff tree leaves. She maneuvered slowly, lowering herself into the overstuffed mattress.

Ben’s gaze followed her as she retreated behind the screen, her feet the only thing visible on the bed once she'd reclined on her side. “You mentioned the surface speeders,” he said slowly, loud enough to indicate he was still speaking to Cobalt. “Are those what you use to farm the flowers?”

“That’s your last stupid question,” she offered shortly. “No. We only use the speeders to cross the water and sand wastes to the Southern settlement to battle and take what we need.”

Ben’s look was less angry, but he was still confused, and obviously agitated. “So you have different tech to scale the trees?”

“Another stupid question. We can climb the trees ourselves, we don’t need a machine to do that for us,” she answered, in a patronizing voice. “We need nothing else. Go, please. I have a headache.” Her feet pulled up behind the screen, and she was still.

Hux frowned at the abrupt dismissal, but turned and gestured to Ben, having him move out the door of the leaf hut, past the shit-eating Chlorohelion that had once again rooted itself above the toilet pit near the door.

“ _What was that_ ,” Ben hissed once they were back in the sweltering air outside the building, and likely still close enough for Cobalt to overhear. “I mean… they’re dying! Another settlement is stealing their supplies! They’re being enslaved by the Munn! They cannibalize the other species that farms with them! Why hasn’t anything been done here?”

“You saw,” Hux explained, rolling his eyes and walking a distance from the dwelling to lean against the trunk of another tree. The shade did nothing for the heat in the still air of the day, and Hux’s bundle of clothing clung damply to his side. There were three other dwellings visible, so Hux kept his voice low, though there were still no other beings stirring. He eyed the vines, wondering if they were being watched discreetly. “They mostly don’t want our help. They only want protection from the southern raids, or aid in raiding the south themselves.”

“Shouldn’t you give it to them anyway? Food, medicine, tech for… I don’t know, harvesting and communicating with the rest of the galaxy, clothing, transportation, temperature control?”

Hux gave Ben a level look. “I told you, they don’t want our help. It’s quite common for isolated cultures to resist most types of aid.”

“But they need it.”

Hux shook his head, staring out to the buildings. “They don’t. They’ve lived without our intervention for hundreds of years, and have no interest in outside involvement or an alteration to their lifestyle. They only want to gain an advantage in their ridiculous civil wars.”

“Won’t they realize how much-”

“No,” Hux cut him off, knowing where this was going. He didn’t look over. “There’s no sense in forcing them. We can offer different types of supplies and tech, but it’s up to them to use it. We won’t force anything on cultures that are surviving and don’t want it. The only course of action we'll take immediately, when we set up permanent contact, is offering the dietary alternatives to the nutrient paste.”

They had recently made peaceable contact with an agricultural planet that could provide the necessary supply for these settlements. Happily, these settlements wouldn't require much. Most of that planet's excess was going directly to the First Order fleet. A part of Hux still hated seeing populations survive on nutrient paste or less while the Order scrambled to secure more supplies, settled and contacted more planets. The process was slow, so slow. They lacked the bodies, the fleet, and the force necessary to go any faster. The Order needed all the help it could get. Hux turned to stare at Ben.

Ben exhaled, frustrated, running his fingers through the sweaty mess of his hair and looking out over the empty dwellings. Irrationally, Hux was momentarily insulted by Ben's frustration, even though he shared it. But Hux's frustration came from experience, not from ignorance about how other planets lived. The circumstances in the early years of the Order hadn’t been much different than these. He opened his mouth to explain, and closed it again, shaking his head and looking back out into the buildings in the canopy. 

Ben wanted to change their culture overnight, which was silly. There was no need, and most cultures valued their self-sufficiency, aside from the necessities of survival. But Ben wouldn’t understand that today. His misunderstanding still served Hux's desire to recruit Ben, so he let it stand.

Ben broke the silence that had fallen between them, glaring in the direction of Cobalt’s building. “Is it true that the other settlement is trying to kill them?”

Hux snorted. “Hardly. The conditions in the southern settlement are identical to these. They have the same weather and length of day for the full year cycle, so there is no advantage or disadvantage to living in either place. There was originally a speeder network for sharing the scarce supplies between the poles, but somehow, it shifted into animosity and raids over the years.” Hux drew out his datapad. “The Humans have no interest in anything other than whether they can eradicate the southern settlement, and vice versa.”

“Why can’t…” Ben trailed off, and Hux could feel his frustration. “Why don’t the Munn give them tech, livable buildings, medical support, enough food…” he gestured sharply with one hand. “Why are they doing this?”

“Because they can, Ben. The only money they actually spend on this planet is on the Bith wages, the maintenance of the orbital station, the nutritive paste that keeps the human population alive, and the maintenance of the planetside distilling equipment. Which, by the way, they’ve never taught the colonists to repair themselves, lest they rebel and become self-sufficient. That’s it. That’s all the Munn care about.”

Hux had gone back to his datapad, setting his clothing on the ground near his feet and paging through the information on Exitens. Ben was still agitated. “But why do the colonists ship all the pollen off-planet for no reason? Why do they keep doing this?”

“You’d have to ask them,” Hux answered absently. “But they do. Something to do with their relationships to the Chlorohelion. I think it’s part of their culture to spend time with the plants out on the vines every day.” Such arrangements weren’t uncommon. He’d heard many debates about cultures like this that engaged in labor that, from an outside perspective, served no clear purpose. The comparisons normally spiraled to why anyone did anything, a philosophical debate Hux had no interest in.

Ben was silent for a long time, processing all this. The buildings and pathways remained still around them, the air thick and rank. “How did the First Order even find this planet?”

“By accident, while we were charting the edge of Wild Space.” As Hux understood it, the orbital station didn’t have automatic defenses built in, though the Order probes had been warned away by the Munn administrators. They’d scanned the surface and found the southern settlement first, speaking to the settlement representative there. Initial contact had been slow, since the representative had never met off-worlders other than the silent Bith technicians. The usual offers had been made - food, medicine, transporting them off-world. But the people of the planet truly only desired to destroy each other, and were happy to cultivate the suckle flowers for the Munn with the Chlorohelions.

After the Order’s initial contact, the Munn had added defenses to the orbital platform that made outside landings impossible without destroying the entire platform system, which wasn't a desirable outcome. Mysteriously, the shuttle to the surface had been left open and unguarded, presumably because the Munn knew full well that there was nothing a handful of diplomats could accomplish in the settlements.

Hux didn’t explain this though, there wasn’t much point. The Order had simply found them, the nuances and history would mean little to Ben. The Order also had plans to gain control of the orbital manufacturing platforms from the Munn. The aim was to process and sell the extracts to Munn themselves, though with considerably more care given to the settlements. They estimated it would generate a significant revenue stream, which the Order needed badly. But Ben didn’t have to know that. Hux pushed the thought back, giving Ben a mild look when Ben looked at him skeptically, his presence pressing deeper into his mind. When Hux shifted his thoughts back to the history of Exitens on his datapad, Ben seemed to relent, asking another question.

“How will the Order help them, if they don’t want help? You mentioned forcing a diet on them?”

Hux gestured with one hand. “I wouldn't call it 'forcing,' but we would provide dietary alternatives, yes, and we've learned how to present those kinds of supplies to isolated cultures to make them more appealing. We can also stop the settlements from raiding each other and re-establish friendly contact between the two poles. According to this, the raiding parties aren’t really a threat, so we’d just need a unit of Stormtroopers to turn them away. We could destroy the speeders so neither could raid the other again, but the diplomats speculate that breaking the raiding cycle and introducing slightly more robust supply packets should satisfy both settlements. Eventually, we’d also teach them how to repair their own distilling equipment, and slowly introduce more tech that they might find useful.”

Hux glanced up to find Ben staring at him incredulously. “It’s that simple?”

Hux raised his brows. “Simple in some ways. But we haven’t been able to get the Troopers to the surface. We aren’t sure how robustly the Munn would defend the planet. Their lives depend on it, of course, so they may put up more of a fight than we anticipate. It’s a diplomatic nightmare.”

“You’re engaged in diplomacy with the Munn?”

“We’re engaged in diplomacy with whoever we please." Which was true, the Order had no shortage of diplomats, smooth talking Imperial remnants who could do nothing else useful and needed to be monitored closely for any hint of corruption. "But yes, we’ve contacted the Munn. Of course, diplomatically, this situation doesn’t exist. They also gave us a lot of credits to agree with them.” That was classified, above even Hux's clearance, but he had his sources of gossip. Offering that tidbit to Ben was no more dangerous or ill-advised than bringing him here.

Ben was shocked. “You accepted a bribe?”

Hux rolled a shoulder. “We accepted their money. I believe I’ve made our intentions clear to you.”

“But the Munn bribed you?” Ben shook his head. “The Munn are members of the New Republic. They should be…”

Hux sighed. “They should be doing a lot of things, Ben. But here we stand. Yes, they’re exploiting this colony. They bribed us to go away and leave them alone.”

“They… talked to you. Negotiated with a fringe military group. They should be reporting on you to the New Republic.”

It was Hux's turn to offer Ben incredulity. “Why would they do that? What possible benefit would it be to them? Would the Senate send an army out to Wild Space to track us down and defeat us? Do you think the Munn want us found, to have their actions thrown into question? Do you think there are Senators that will believe that the Munn _don’t_ offer bribes in the Outer Rim and Unknown Regions to make their problems disappear?”

Ben seemed to hesitate at this. Hux could feel his mental turmoil. Perhaps there were New Republic Senators that believed bribes didn’t happen. Hux might believe that. He scowled, turning his datapad off and tucking it away.

“But the Munn would turn against you,” Ben said slowly, trying to work out the situation for himself. He looked at Hux. “Wouldn’t you make enemies of them?”

Hux glanced back out into the village, agitated himself now and growing tired of talking. It was hot, and even with his clothes off, he felt disgusting. The air stank, and he hated the thought of how he would smell when they left the planet. “They don’t have a force to send against us, and wouldn’t bother. They might try to stir up trouble with the cartels, but we have understandings with most of them as well.”

“The cartels?”

“Black Sun, Crymorah, Red Key. A few others. We can talk to them.”

“But the cartels were driven-”

“Ben.” Hux turned to look at him. “We can stand here all day, in the heat, discussing the history of Unknown Region politics. But it’s hot, and I’m tired. Don’t you want to remove your clothes?”

Ben glared at him. “No. It’s too hot for that.”

Hux scowled. “If you think I want to fuck you after that display of ignorance, you are mistaken.”

Ben ignored him. “Why should I believe any of this?”

Hux shook his head. “You don’t have to. But you spoke to that representative, and we’re here. If you wanted to test yourself, now’s the time.” Hux shifted, looking back to Cobalt's room, and then to Ben again. “Do you want to participate in the raid defense tonight?”

Ben seemed startled by this, as if the possibility hadn’t occurred to him. He uncrossed his arms, shifting and pulling at his sodden robes, stained with the same green and yellow dust that was smeared all over Hux's skin. “I… guess,” he said slowly, his gaze straying to the empty branch paths shaded by the broad leaves. “She said they were… stealing the Chlorohelion. Kidnapping them. Why would they do that, if the culture is the same in the south? Wouldn’t they have their own Chlorohelion?”

Hux shrugged, his back scraping against the bark he was leaning against. “Perhaps the fertility rates climbed, and they need more mature plants than they have. Or the Rep was disingenuous with us, and the opposite is true and the northern settlements were stealing them from the south. They do lie about one another.” The animosity would be comical, if it wasn’t so headache-inducing.

Ben frowned. “They shouldn’t eat the Chlorohelion. They’re sentient.”

“You’ll have to take it up with them.” Hux paused, curious. “Can you sense their thoughts? Did you know how that plant felt, back in Cobalt’s room?”

Ben shook his head, the corners of his mouth pulling down. “Yes. Sort of. It did like her.”

Hux looked back to the open doorway, considering. “It came when she called.”

“That doesn’t mean it wants to be killed.”

“I don’t want to die either, but it’ll happen some day. Isn’t that the Republican cliche, that it’s best done surrounded by loved ones?”

Ben rolled his eyes, muttering “I don’t think the loved ones kill and eat you.”

Hux thought of his father, but kept his opinions to himself. “I don’t care why they eat the plants. We’re on this planet because you wanted to do something good with your powers.” He gestured, waving to the silent buildings, where not a single other human had emerged. “You see the issues here, and it’s within your power to help, and possibly stop it for good." The last was an exaggeration, but it would be good for Ben to hear. "Are you going to do this, or are you going to go back to your Jedi Temple with your uncle and try to meditate?”

This touched a nerve, and Ben’s expression went dark. “Careful, Hux. You’re the one that drug me out here.”

“No,” Hux snapped, straightening and maneuvering himself in front of Ben, who was slouching sullenly against the limb now, arms crossed. He looked miserable and angry, and was beginning to withdraw his thoughts from Hux’s mind. “I did not force you to come here. Your uncle didn’t force you, and your mother didn’t force you. This is your own decision, for yourself and your own life. Make it. Will you help them, or will you go back to your uncle?”

Hux was angry, but he also needed this, needed Ben to say yes. Ben could do this. It would be an easy matter. Hux doubted they would solve the problem, the two of them today, but he wanted to see how Ben reacted to a situation like this. It would be useful for placing him later.

As he continued to glare at Ben, Ben remained silent, and Hux kept his expression stern, but something twisted inside him. Had he misjudged Ben? Ben needed to be pushed, but perhaps putting all the responsibility on him had been the wrong move. Ben might go back to the Jedi and tell everything he'd learned from Hux. Hux may have made a bad mistake, and he cursed himself and his inability to check his mouth around Ben Solo.

But eventually, Ben’s expression cleared to something more thoughtful. He relaxed, glancing down, then back up at Hux again. “I’ll help them,” Ben said slowly, looking at Hux. “You want it, too.”

Hux wanted to sigh in relief, but he kept his expression still, and inclined his head. He had tried to tempt Ben with self-direction, but he hadn’t dared believe Ben would do this because Hux told him to. It didn’t seem quite right. But. That was good to know. “I do. I want you to help them. I wanted you to see this, and the difference you could make on planets like this.”

“I see it,” Ben sighed. “You were right. About all of it.”

Hux smirked. “I told you that before. I’m always right. You should just listen to me.”

Ben raised his brow, and swept his sweaty hair back. “I don’t know that you have my best interests at heart.”

“I have my own goals. You can help me with them. I haven’t made a secret of that.”

Ben looked down. “Right. Okay. I’ll meet with the raiders tonight.”

Hux paused. “You plan on talking to the raiders.”

“I want them to listen. We should negotiate first.”

“Ben,” Hux said, slowly. “We just tried to talk to one of the settlers. The reports indicate that Cobalt's opinions prevail. They don’t want to listen. They don’t see past their own situation. And the New Republic. Do you think that they would help here? Their talking? That they could just go in and ask the Munn to pay these people and give them the things they need?”

Ben was frustrated, growing angrier and more restless. “You said they don’t want the help.”

“They don’t! But they’re too stubborn to give up their war. You have to stop them from fighting first.”

“I can reason with them.”

Hux shook his head. “You can’t. You don’t think we've tried?”

Ben's posture, tensing as he argued with Hux, relaxed, and he resumed his more relaxed slump against the thick branch. “Why do they attack… the distilleries?”

“It’s the only tech these colonies have, other than the datapads they use to communicate with and the speeders they take between settlements. And you heard. They attack it because it hurts the colonies.”

“Is it really the only water supply?”

“Yes. The water on this planet is too sulphuric for consumption. They can drink the dew from the plants, their… mature Chlorohelions, but not the groundwater. Even the rainwater is highly toxic.” Hux looked at the canopy. “Apparently the leaf canopy repels the rain, but the Humans seek shelter or wear leaf cover when it rains. It burns human skin. The distilleries are necessary.”

“And when they raid, they only steal the Chlorohelion and damage the distilling equipment?”

“No. They also burn the suckle crops, if they can. They try to destroy the foundation trees, though I don’t think any of the settlers have ever done it. They steal the nutritive paste, the kigilli bird meat if it’s available. The food.”

“And they… don’t hide it? The northern settlement just steals it back a few days later?”

Hux rolled his eyes. “I suspect they don’t so they can wage their silly wars. Hiding it would make too much sense.”

Ben’s fingers went thoughtlessly to the lightsaber at his belt. “And what kind of weapons do they use?”

“Their fists, as far as I know. Vine whips too, if I’m not mistaken. But they don’t have blasters or plasma weapons, nor even slugthrowers or slingshots.”

“So it’s peaceful?”

Hux stared back. “Peaceful. I suppose by some definitions, yes.”

Ben looked back out across the canopy with its little buildings, the wide branch pathways, the green light filtering through the thick leaves. “So is Hab-118. The residents have a simple life. They’re born, they raise food, help each other, fight with each other. They live, they love, they die.” He shrugged, looking back to Hux. “I told Luke once I wished it were that simple. He told me it was.”

“For you it’s not, and these people will be better for it. And not all planets can have the luxury of being protected from outside influence by keeping the Jedi.”

Ben’s hands flexed at his sides. “Right. Even if... simplicity were possible for me, I don’t think I’d want it.” He looked at Hux again, stared at Hux with his brown eyes. “But there’s something about it that I like.” He looked back down to the ground. “Uncle Luke says it’s related to my meditation. I’m not peaceful myself, so I'm drawn to it in others.”

“If peace isn’t for you, stop looking for it,” Hux said simply, shrugging his shoulders. “And start finding a war.”

Ben glanced back up to Hux. “Aren’t you trying to avoid a war?”

“There’s always a war, Ben. You’ve never seen one. How do you know it isn’t what you’re meant for?”

Ben’s eyes bored into him. “Is it what you’re meant for?”

Hux returned the steady look, completely sure of his answer. “I’m meant to bring Order. By whatever means necessary.”

There was silence between them for a moment. Finally, Ben nodded. “All right.” He shrugged away from the branch he’d been leaning against and brushed past Hux, the abrasive fabric of Ben’s robes scratching against Hux’s skin. Hux turned and watched him go back down the path to Cobalt’s rooms.

“Where are you going?”

He gestured, not turning back to look at Hux. “To find out where the attack will happen, and at what time. It sounds like they probably have a schedule.”

 

* * *

 

And so, at nightfall, Hux and Ben waited at the outskirts of the large clearing where the distilling machinery was kept. The planet had two moons, neither of which was visible in the patch of sky between the colossal trees, but their light was enough to make the machinery stand out. The distilling equipment was loud and outdated, with cracked solar panels and clouds of steam dissipating into the thick, humid air. The Bith's misery made more sense, once Hux understood how impossible the maintenance must have been. All of it needed to be replaced. Hux was disappointed to find that the heat abated only a little after night fell, and that the air stayed thick and humid overnight. Worse, the sulfur that the equipment removed from the water to make it drinkable made the air smell even worse. Hux had grown nearly used to it after passing the day in the settlement with Cobalt, but the clearing smelled strong enough to turn his stomach. He should have been hungry, and perhaps Ben was, but he couldn't bring himself to take any food from the northern settlement.

The distilling machinery was kept at ground level, and several naked Humans prowled around the perimeter, vines wrapped in their hands, their job clearly to guard the distillers against the raiders. A handful more of the naked northern settlers pushed wheeled carts from distiller to distiller. Some emptied large duraluminum drums into the distillers. The drums contained reeking, chemically fouled water from either the stew of the ocean or the toxic rainfall. Others emptied the distilled freshwater vats into sealed casks. Once the drinkable water was sealed into casks, a procession of tired-looking beings drank deeply of them, then strapped the large vessels to their backs and disappeared into the trees.

The Humans on this planet were short and squat, broad and muscular all over from constantly climbing and carrying the water casks and barrels. All of them went unclothed, and Hux could see the evidence of their poor diets - their muscles stood out in strained cords, and all the Humans looked haggard and tired. Hux recognized the look from his childhood, how a body looked taxed to its physical limit when not adequately fed. He wondered how a recruitment campaign would go here, and whether it was worthwhile to have a unit that specialized in grappling, which seemed to be the technique these settlers favored. Would there be battle situations where they could get close to an enemy without getting taken out by weapons? Was it worth having specialized soldiers for that? Or perhaps they could be used for stealth situations where a blaster shot would give them away?

Hux leaned indifferently against the side of one of the distillers. The heat of the day no longer made the metal hot to touch, but it was still warm, and he felt the sweat collecting against his back. He had left his clothing in Cobalt’s hut, along with his hat, so he wore only his underwear and boots. He had very nearly removed his underwear as well - worn as an outer garment, they were getting dirty and were visibly sweaty, and Hux loathed letting himself be seen like this. He hoped the clothing was safe with Cobalt, who had not responded when he asked if he could leave it with her. He also hated the thought of returning to the First Order naked, though he would be far from the first who did so.

Ben stood next to him, still partially clothed. Even after plentiful evidence that Hux was not making up the nudity on Exitens, Ben absolutely refused to remove his robes. But the heat was dangerous, so he’d been forced to concede the top of his robes, and was currently barechested. The concession should have pleased Hux, but it was mostly distracting. Ben’s robes were folded around his waist, the belt with Ben’s lightsaber and Hux’s blaster still accessible.

Nudity left Ben and Hux and the other Humans vulnerable to swarms of tiny biting flies that appeared when night fell. These seemed to favor sweaty, bare flesh, though only Hux seemed bothered. He occasionally looked around to see the northern settlers brushing absently at their arms and faces. Even Ben’s attempts to deter them seemed idle and distracted. Hux found himself slapping at his skin more often than he’d like, the thought of the insects crawling and biting him repulsive.

“When do you think it will happen?” Ben murmured. He was tense, wary, but also excited. Hux could feel the edges of it in his own thoughts. It was exactly what he had been hoping for.

“Hard to say. The attacks happen at night, but we could be waiting for eleven hours.” Hux shifted against the machine. “Judging by this distilling equipment, the speeders are probably ancient. We could go to sleep, and the clattering of its arrival would wake us up with plenty of warning.”

Conversation between them was sparse. Ben was too nervous about this upcoming raid, excited about his role, whether it was to fight or, absurdly, reason hundreds of years of conflict out of the colonists by teaching them the value of peace.

As time passed, Ben lapsed into some sort of fidgety meditation, which Hux suspected was not a real attempt. He could still feel Ben’s nosy presence in his own mind, meaning that he probably hadn’t achieved the undisturbed quiet he sought. When his fidgeting became worse and Ben grew too upset with himself to continue the attempt, he began practicing repetitive saber forms among the rattling distillers.

Hux purposely ignored him, though he’d been dying for this opportunity his whole life. He feigned indifference, browsing the news on his comm pad, but he kept one eye on Ben, always, and he knew Ben knew it. He told himself he didn’t need to watch now. He would soon be able to watch Ben practice his lightsaber whenever he wished.

The two had spent the heat of the afternoon indoors with a sullen, silent Cobalt, who declared them too ignorant to speak to. She had no method for lessening the heat, humidity, or smell, but Hux told himself, as the once-familiar signs that he was pushing his body too far became apparent, that being indoors was better than nothing. They had partaken in the evening water delivery, the warm, metallic-tasting water reviving them as a slight breeze blew away some of the heat and humidity. Now, the sweat still ran down his face and chest, and he scowled as he left disgusting smeared fingerprints on the surface of his datapad.

He was currently researching the diplomatic history of Laymar, where he was set to arrive for his first posting in two standard days. He found himself uncharacteristically uneasy about the looming date, something that had pleased him immensely only a week ago. He couldn’t concentrate, the screen was covered in a thin film of whatever was in the air on Exitens, and he finally gave up.

“Ben,” he barked sharply, watching Ben stop his exercise and turn around to face him. His sword wasn’t currently activated, so his profile was lit only by the two moons, still not visible in the gap of tree canopies above them. The moonlight shone on his damp skin, though Hux could not make out his expression in the darkness, only the outline of shoulders, the damp hair that was now clinging to his head. As agreeable a sight as it was, Hux found he was still uneasy and annoyed. His eyes fell on the robes bunched around Ben's waist and still draping his legs, and he found himself growing even more irrationally angry.

“Must you keep those horrible robes on?”

Ben shifted slightly, and Hux felt a vague push of incredulity. “What’s wrong with them?”

“It’s hot, and you insist on wearing them. Not only are they heavy and multi-layered, but they are also coarse and uncomfortable. Do the Jedi not believe in simple clothing?”

“What’s simpler than a robe? It’s better than your stuffy uniform.”

“You haven’t even seen my uniform.”

Ben made a considering noise. “I’d like to. And I’d like to see it on the floor, too.”

Hux ignored him. “Why do those robes chafe so badly? Isn’t it an impediment when you fight?”

“We don’t fight,” Ben replied dryly. “And it’s not this humid on Hab-118. They’re fine.”

“They’re not fine. You obviously never worn a fine weave fabric.”

Ben walked closer, leaning in, and Hux was sure he was going to kiss him. Instead, he snapped the elastic on Hux's briefs. It was surprising enough that he jumped. Hux opened his mouth to shout, but before he could, Ben laughed. The genuine amusement gave Hux pause, and only made the uneasy feeling he'd been fighting worse.

“I didn’t think anything surprised you," Ben remarked, getting himself under control, but still smirking, the grin sitting crooked on his face.

Hux’s hand went to his side. “Stupidity does, when I think better of others.”

“Right. But you’re awfully interested in comfortable fabric for someone who wears uniforms for a living.”

“I don’t-” Hux stopped himself. He’d worn uncomfortable, ill-fitting, ragged clothing most of his life. The discovery of Perola, and the deal they’d brokered for their fine Kola herds and the superb fabric produced from their fur, had been one of the most exciting events for the young cadets in the history of the Order. Hux was one of many who still woke up every day absurdly pleased to pull on a soft, bespoke uniform.

Ben didn’t notice the way Hux stumbled over the answer. He’d tightened the sash at his waist, then slapped at a cloud of the biting insects absently as he watched one of the settlers circling the field with a vine, weaving in and out of the shadows cast by the enormous trees. “It’s hard for me to believe that they live like this, with only the tech for drinking water.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Hux explained slowly. “It would take very little to raise their quality of life. We're trying to help.”

“You could just ship them off-planet,” Ben muttered darkly. “This place is awful.”

“Would you want to be abruptly and permanently torn from your home?”

Ben turned to him. “Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to convince me to do?”

Hux waved the complaint away, still irritated by the heat and the stinging insects crowding his face. “You’re hardly subjected to profitless labor, knowing little else.”

Ben looked up into the trees. “I wish I knew more about their relationship with the Chlorohelions,” he murmured. “They find such peace in the lifestyle.”

“Hours ago it horrified you.”

“Yeah, but…” He turned back to Hux, and seemed genuinely wistful. “They really are connected,” He gestured between the two of them. “In a significant way that's important to both species. It’s symbiotic, and it goes deeper than biology or culture.”

“Mmm.” Hux turned his datapad back on, losing interest in the conversation. “Pity that Cobalt thought you were too stupid to understand.”

“Right.” Ben had tried, but Cobalt had ignored him, which had made Ben increasingly angry. “I still don’t get it. She should have been proud of it.”

“She acted like we’d asked her how to breathe.”

“That’s what makes it interesting! That it comes so naturally. Doesn’t that fascinate you?”

“No,” Hux answered sincerely.

Ben sighed, pausing for a moment, his thoughts shifting. “Can we really help them so easily?”

Hux shut off his datapad again, recognizing he was just fidgeting with it and tossing it on the ground in a fit of disgust. A cloud of dust puffed around it, sticking to the fingerprints on the screen. He scowled, looking back to Ben. “Yes. I've already told you about the diplomatic summaries, and after seeing the situation myself, I agree. But the Order doesn't currently have the resources to land past the Munn blockade, and doesn't have a whole lot of other official options. I’m hoping that we can take an action tonight that will temporarily deter the raiding." He gestured to his datapad. "There's some notes in the file that indicate that action will be taken to liberate the settlements within the next month.” He eyed Ben up and down. “The delay is because our resources are limited. With you and your Force powers, we could terrify both settlements into not attacking each other, and that could put an end to the problems without the need to tax our limited Trooper allotment.”

Ben looked distinctly uncomfortable and restless at that. Hux felt a push in the back of his mind - Ben, unsure, wanting more and not certain of his place. Hux continued, taking a step forward, straightening his posture and moving away from the distiller.

“You know the Republic can’t help these people, Ben. They would have never found this planet. If they had, it would have taken them months to investigate. And the Munn would have simply bribed where appropriate to hush the whole thing up.” He shook his head. “It’s not an effective system. You know it. You can see it.”

“It’s not… the system doesn’t work on _bribes_ ,” Ben replied indignantly, choosing irrationally to return to this argument. Hux shook his head, his fingers coming up to Ben’s chest. It was slick, and he moved his fingers over Ben's pectoral, not able to resist letting his thumb stray over one nipple, feeling it stiffen at his casual touch despite the heat and unpleasant conditions. He dropped his hand to his side again, looking into Ben's face.

“If you think so, you’re even more naive than I thought. Do you honestly think the InterGalactic Banking Clan holds no sway over the New Republic? Can you think of a single piece of legislation that has gone against them? Taxed them? Moved their money to a place that doesn’t directly benefit them?”

This only made Ben angrier, though Hux sensed that his anger was better than confusion or lack of conviction. Anger seemed like healthy fuel for Ben, something that made him think.

He was both alarmed and gratified to see Ben take several steps away, ignite his lightsaber, and ram the plasma blade into the middle of one of the massive tree at the edge of the clearing. One of the settlers emptying a distiller nearby jumped, dropping their duraluminum vat, and scrambled away. Ben’s angry presence pushed all over Hux, his skin and his mind, almost as powerfully as his arousal did during sex. It was heady, addictive. Hux closed his eyes. He wanted Ben to stay angry, to go out and conquer systems like this. Furious, with his lightsaber drawn, leading the Troopers.

Ben, breathing heavily, deactivated his lightsaber and turned to Hux. “Anger is a path to the Dark Side.”

“Anger suits you, Ben.”

Ben exhaled, and Hux could sense that he was getting himself back under control. “You’re just… saying whatever you think will make me agree with you. I don’t know anything about politics, Hux. I don’t know about the InterGalactic Banking Clan, and where their money goes. I do know that my mother wouldn’t tolerate corruption. Mon Mothma wouldn’t either.”

“They are only two women, Ben. And power corrupts.”

“Exactly,” Ben murmured, stepping closer, and Hux could feel fury, unexpected and thick, pool around them. Ben's moods were growing more changeable, and Hux wasn't sure what to make of that. “You want power, too. You want _mine_  because it makes your fake Empire better. But what’s stopping you from occupying these poor, defenseless planets? From amassing resources to build your own government, to shift everything to you? Isn’t that the exact same thing?”

Hux shook his head, and slapped at a swarm of flies that were buzzing around his upper arm. He wanted power, yes, but he wanted Ben, more and more. Saying so wasn't useful. “We aren’t raised to covet things like money, or petty control over the powerless. We don’t play the same games as the New Republic. Everything is given evenly. Your power is simply one more element that helps us balance systems.” Hux took his own step closer, Ben’s anger still crawling all over his skin. “Is that… dark? Is that a bad thing, if done for the right reason?”

Ben’s anger was so powerful it made Hux’s head ache. Unable to stop himself once again, he reached his hand up, stroking a thumb along Ben’s sweaty jaw, feeling the stubble against his skin. He could sense that this was the tipping point. He wanted to be touching Ben as he made his decision. He closed his eyes, pressed his palm against Ben's cheek. Leaned in.

But just then, he heard the hum of the ancient speeders, far in the distance. He opened his eyes and turned, cursing the timing. “They’re here.”

Ben stepped beside him. The sound was coming from the other side of the distillery field. “Four speeders. Twelve Humans.”

Hux turned and raised his eyebrows. “You can tell from this distance? And that they’re different from the guards patrolling this field?”

Ben sighed, turning to Hux with a spike of annoyance. “Anger makes it easier. It’s-” He shook his head, then began sprinting across the clearing and between the distilling equipment, lightsaber in hand. Hux followed, chasing him through the shadows of the machinery.

When they reached the other side, they found a paltry gathering of northern settlers, vines in hand, watching the speeders pull up. The speeders were larger than Hux had anticipated, and also much older. They were fitted to seat about thirty, though most of them had been modified to take supplies instead of Humans. All of them appeared to be made of rust, oil stains, and badly tuned engines. Hux thought he could probably sprint faster than these speeders could travel.

He saw the southern settlers climb down from the speeders, identical to the northern settlers - same shaved heads, malnourished look, dark angry eyes, and broad, muscular frames. They also lacked clothing and carried vines in their hands. They looped the vines around their necks and approached the Northern settlers. Both groups spread out in a line, and Hux noted that they were evenly matched, with the settlers approaching to stand toe-to-toe in pairs, silently sizing each other up. Hux and Ben tensed, several paces away, waiting for the fighting to begin.

To Hux’s astonishment, all the settlers on each side proceeded to wordlessly lock each other in a kind of grappling hold that Hux had never seen. Their bodies were well-suited to the exercise, low and powerful. It appeared to be an attrition exercise, a test of strength. He and Ben watched, dumbfounded, as the warriors, both men and women, sweated and grunted, their bare toes digging into the soft soil as they attempted to gain purchase against their opponent.

After a few moments, two of the northerners fell, and the southerners quickly flipped them onto their backs, grappling with their sweaty legs. One of the northerners slid from the southerner’s grip and managed to flip the hold and slowly push the southerner’s face into the dirt.

Hux looked around. The distiller workers had stopped, gathering to watch the grappling matches.

When Hux looked back, he saw three other northerners on their backs. One of the southerners was tying the vines around their limbs, binding them into place. After they were finished, one of the distiller workers advanced, locking into the grapple with the southerner.

The northerners seemed to lack the strength of the southerners, and the distillers seemed tired, not up for this battle of attrition. As Hux watched, four more of the northerners were trussed on the ground, gasping and grunting.

All of this was achieved without conversation.

Hux looked from the fights to Ben, who watched, fascinated and excited and slightly aroused. Hux frowned at him, then drew the blaster from his belt, firing it into the air.

All heads turned towards him, their tired, disinterested expressions briefly lit by the blue plasma bolt.

“All right, that’s enough of that.”

“What?” one of the trussed northerners called from the ground, incredulous. “You’re supposed to help us keep them away from our water supply! You can’t just stop them, you have to fight!”

“This is ridiculous,” Hux returned. “You.” He gestured to one of the southerners. “Were you coming to destroy the distillers?”

“Yes,” the southerner snapped, then spat on the ground at the feet of one of the northerners. “They did it to us. They got a third of our equipment. We lost twenty to the heat wave after that, before the technicians could get the parts to fix it.”

Ben continued the question, voice tight. “Did you destroy their distillers?”

“Yeah,” one of the northerners snarled. “They set fire to my trees.”

Ben shook his head. “How did you… do that? How do you destroy the equipment without any weapons or tools?”

“We dump the ocean water over them, into the works,” one said, gesturing to the vats of water steaming on the backs of two of the speeders.

“Points for creativity,” Hux muttered, firing into a tree when the settlers began murmuring to each other, discontent. “All right. I can't watch this anymore. Ben,” He turned to Ben, who seemed confused and unsure again, though his fury was still there, his anger at this situation that was so easy to solve. "How do you propose to stop this?”

Ben sighed, then pointed the shaft of his lightsaber at one of the southerners. “What’s your name?”

“I don’t have to tell you,” the southerner mumbled, bending down to tighten the knots on the northerner he was tying up. The northerner seemed equally furious at Ben's inquiry.

Hux could feel Ben’s anger at the denial. It was petty, and Hux was surprised, then delighted when Ben put a hand out, using the Force to draw the Southerner across the dirt, then levitate in the air when he was a meter from where Ben and Hux stood. Hux schooled his expression and straightened, adopting as much an air of command as he could in boots and sweaty, dusty underwear.

“He asked you a question,” Hux drawled, putting his hands behind his back and regarding this human with his usual amount of calm. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the others shrink back, retreating in a radius around them, cursing and spitting on the ground, the trussed northerners struggling against their bonds.

“It’s White,” the levitated southerner said insolently, struggling against Ben's Force hold.

Ben set White’s feet back on the ground, but kept his hand palm out in front of him, and the southerner's body suddenly went rigid. Ben’s face showed a deadly calm, his mind held an iron resolve to control this situation. Hux was utterly delighted. This could not be going any better.

“White,” Ben repeated in an even voice. “There are many Whites in the Northern settlement, too.”

“We’re named for the Chlorohelions in our families, the ones we grew up with.” He had the same impatient tone that indicated their contempt for any questions about their lives. Hux saw Ben’s fingers flex, and heard White groan.

“Yes, we met a Cobalt earlier. So you all have the same names. White, Crimson, Cobalt, Indigo, Charcoal, Black, all that?”

“Yes,” White grit out, and Hux saw Ben’s hand relax, White slumping forward in relief, though still appearing to be partially bound by Ben's Force.

“Okay.” Ben licked his lips. “Did you steal Chlorohelions from the northern settlement two weeks ago?”

“Yes.” He looked confused. “We need them, when there’s more babies.” He glared at a northerner on the ground nearby. “I’ve had mine stolen before. I had to shift into my sister White’s house so I could drink at night.”

“That’s what that means,” Hux said, disbelieving. “So the northerners do it too.”

“Yeah, when there’s more babies born.”

Hux rubbed the space between his eyes. “Right. Of course.”

Ben dropped him completely, and the man fell to his knees. “These are the speeders the southern raiders use to get to the northern settlement?” he asked, inclining his head to where the four speeders sat, sadly, on sputtering repulsors.

“Yeah,” the man muttered, backing away on his hands and knees.

Ben held the man's gaze as he ignited his lightsaber, the violet plasma blade throwing the clearing into sharp contrasts of light and color. Hux saw every human gasp, then spit on the ground, fleeing into the edges of the forest and up the vines.

Hux watched as Ben Solo took his lightsaber to the speeders, channeling his rage and frustration into an impressive show of shredding the ancient machinery to pieces. Repulsors, thrusters, seats, and steering mechanisms were reduced to scrap on all four vehicles. Hux was outwardly impassive, hands still behind his back, though he had to work to actively suppress how impressive this was, how effective. Ben obviously had no control, was letting his rage master him. But that could be... effective. Was effective right now. And Ben could perhaps learn otherwise, in time.

When Ben was finished, he stood, gasping for breath, his hair plastered against his skull and dripping with sweat. Hux felt his rage ebb away, replaced by a more present and controlled anger. The idea came through into Hux’s thoughts distinctly - Ben blamed the beings for his loss of control, that they could be so senseless and stupid. Hux suppressed his amusement at this thought.

Ben straightened, then looked up into the dark trees, where all the people had vanished, and shouted his decision. “You’re all northerners now. Congratulations.”

There were cries of protest, indistinct and far above, where neither the violet light cast by the lightsaber nor the moonlight could touch the beings. Hux thought of something, then stepped forward, firing his blaster into the air again.

“Wait,” he yelled, then turned to Ben. “Pull one of the northerners from the trees and bring them here.”

Ben obligingly put his hand out, and a body flew from the tree, this time a woman. The height and fall was impressive, and Hux had to once again suppress his astonishment at the action itself, and the ease with which Ben did it. Ben had her kneel at his feet, and she made a low, keening noise, not quite a moan or a sob. Hux would have too, had he just been plucked from hundreds of meters in the air by Ben's magic.

But he dismissed the sympathy, instead bending low, using his fingertips to tip her head, making her take in his calm expression, his seeming control of the situation. “You will do no harm to the southerners. Is that clear?”

She shook her head, and Hux gripped her chin tighter. “They are northerners, as of today. I will ask you one more time. Is that clear?”

Her eyes narrowed, and she bared her teeth. “Those southern garflies will never be one of us.”

Hux straightened, put his hands behind his back. “It seems an easy task to me,” he drawled. “There are Whites, Cobalts, and Crimsons among them. Put them in White, Cobalt, and Crimson households, and condense as you would with the birth of a child. Think of them as new members of the settlement. They get their own trees, their own flowers to tend. They can pick fruit, hunt kigilli birds, tend the distillers. It’s as if you gained twelve healthy bodies. Does this seem like an impediment to you?”

“They’re _southerners_ ,” she snarled. “They don’t know how to be harmonious.”

Hux paused, but didn’t ask about the odd phrasing. “Oh, I think they do. If this is too much, you may isolate them, but you may not withhold nutrients or other supplies from them.” He removed his hand from her chin and crouched down, making his face level with hers. “If they die due to neglect, or misadventure, or anything else you come up with-” he drew his blaster, and pushed it into her cheek. She trembled, and Hux nodded. “We’ll be back.”

He stood up smoothly and turned to Ben, nodding and holstering his weapon, then began walking vaguely in the direction of the transportation hub, leaving the settlers to sort out the aftermath. Ben followed him wordlessly, though Hux noted that his thoughts were no longer pressing into Hux's mind.

The biting insects thinned once they were back in the jungle, and Hux noticed a stillness. Not a breath of wind stirred the leaves, and he did not hear the calls of the killi birds from high above, nor the loud buzzing of the suckle bees. There was simply Ben’s footsteps and his own. It was dark, oppressively dark, though the outlines of the huge trunks shone faintly in the moonlight. He cursed when he realized he'd left his datapad in the clearing, giving it up for lost when he realized he wouldn't be able to retrieve it and save face. Instead, he reached into the holster on Ben's belt and drew out his wrist comm, using its faint light and limited features to navigate, letting it map a light blue holoprojection of the path in front of them.

Sighing, he walked down the path, his boots sinking into the soft soil of the forest floor. Ben walked two steps behind him, obviously conflicted, though Hux could not sense the source of his anxiety. He tried complimenting him, not looking back as he continued down the illuminated path.

“You did well, Ben. That was an elegant solution to the problem. You’ve stopped the infighting, and saved those settlers grief and time while the Order works on the Munn control. Well done.”

“Hux,” he choked. “We tortured them.” Hux heard his breath hitch. “ _I_  tortured them.”

He turned around, catching a brief reflection of Ben’s eyes in the low light, a soft beep emanating from the comm to indicate he had gone the wrong direction.

“Ben. Do you think we solved the problem?”

“There was another way. I didn’t even try talking to them.”

Hux shook his head. “They wouldn’t have listened, Ben. I didn’t need to sense anything about them to know that.” When Ben remained silent, Hux continued. “We could have left, and let them pour water all over the distillers. You could have terrified them and sent the southerners back on their speeders without engaging them as we did. But they would have been back, and the northerners would have raided again as soon as the Munn saw fit to fix their speeders. This-” he gestured behind them. “This solved the problem in an instant. There were no injuries. There will be no more deaths, no more infighting.”

He turned and began walking. “It was a silly conflict, and we stopped it, with just the two of us and minimal destruction of nonessential equipment. It's a victory, Ben and one that cost us only an uncomfortable day's time. I can't tell you how important that is.”

“It was… it was _bad_. I could sense their fear. I could taste it.”

“And I could sense your anger. You handled yourself well.”

“I think I… imposed my will on you. And them. I think I influenced your thoughts. I don’t think it was right.”

Hux snorted. “You didn’t change my mind about any of that, we were most certainly in agreement.” He slowed, glancing over his shoulder. “Ben, you’ve saved lives. Dozens of them, in no time at all. And you’ve given them a story to tell for generations.” He faced forward again, so pleased with himself. The cloying smell of the suckle flowers pressed in all around them, and he was lightheaded with hunger, but nothing could take away what they'd just done. “Do you think those who witnessed your power won’t have status for years to come? Others will want to hear this story again and again.”

Ben sighed shakily, but Hux could sense his resolve weakening. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“I think you should have. I think it’s what you were meant to do.” He waved a hand. “I am genuinely envious of you, Ben. If I had your skills, I would do that and more, regularly.”

When Ben didn’t respond, Hux continued.

“Tell me, what would you have done with your evening, had we not gone to this planet?”

“I would have… we were reviewing some old Jedi Order Archives. A record of negotiations on Teth. We were discussing the implications of the decision, and the Jedi’s role in the balance between the Labor Force and the Planetary Government, how much they were taxed for their services. I would have meditated for two, maybe three hours. And then I would have slept.”

Hux was intrigued by the idea of the Order Archives, but let it pass. “And instead you were here. What do you think was the better use of time?”

“It was this,” he said, the volume of his voice rising, “But I don’t know that it was _right_.”

“I do. I’m sure.”

Ben relented at this, and Hux could feel his amusement at the well-trodden argument. He was pleased to have Ben in his mind again, so he pushed his next statement at the sense of Ben in his head.

_Let me be sure for you, Ben. Let me guide you._

Ben didn’t respond, but he calmed. Hux let it be enough for now, and led them back to the transportation hub. He left his beloved uniform on Exitens, giving it up for a lost cause along with his datapad. He would be provided with more of both when he arrived on Laymar.

 

* * *

 

“Ben,” he gasped, fingers scrabbling against the wet tile behind him, the hot water cascading over one side of his face. “ _Ben_.”

They had gone back to the transportation hub, but it had been too miserably hot and they had been too hungry to do anything but sleep. So they had dozed restlessly on the benches in the hub, awaking when the next transport arrived. They stumbled onto it mostly naked, and Hux nearly withered in relief as the stifling, smelly atmosphere of the planet drained away, replaced by the cool, recycled air of starships that Hux was so familiar with.

When they boarded the main transport back to Hosnian Prime, Ben had once again paid for a very expensive private suite, fully furnished with a real water shower that Hux appreciated all the more after the waterless waste they had just left. They had immediately shed their clothing and begun washing the sulfur stink of the planet off each other.

Hux was currently riding Ben’s fingers, which had grown increasingly skillful in so little time.

“What,” Ben asked innocently, twisting his hand to drag a knuckle across Hux’s prostate.

“Wait,” Hux murmured, and Ben pulled his fingers out. Hux hissed, grabbing his wrist.

“Not that. Can you-” He clamped his mouth shut, too embarrassed to ask. Ben was curious, and leaned into Hux’s chest, forearm pressing down firmly, his weight pinning Hux to the wall. Ben’s mouth found his neck, and he licked up the side currently getting rinsed by the shower spray. Hux had already tasted Ben all over, though he found the traces of sulfur made the sweat more bitter than salty, and he felt as if the pungent flower scent would never come off either of them.

Ben sent a wordless inquiry into Hux's mind, and Hux pictured what he wanted - his legs around Ben’s chest, Ben pinning him to the wall with the Force, fingers in his hair and in his ass.

Ben nearly choked against his neck, but Hux suddenly felt a pressure lifting him up gently. The arm across his chest vanished, replaced by the full weight of Ben's chest bearing him into the wall, his fingers pulling hard at Hux's hair near the back of his neck. Hux obligingly wrapped his legs around Ben’s waist, thrusting their hips together to get the friction they both sought. Ben moaned into Hux’s neck, but his other hand dutifully found Hux’s ass and continued its talented explorations.

Sex was incredible, but it was hard to picture it with anyone but Ben, who could see directly into Hux’s mind and anticipate his needs as they came up. He was eager to please, to indulge Hux’s fantasies of rough sex, of the hard fuck he desperately wanted. He wanted it without the mind tricks to take away the pain, and Ben was trying to open him wide enough for it with just his fingers. It was a lot, and it was incredible. It was also maddening - tight and hard and exactly what he wanted, but not enough to give him release.

Hux allowed himself a loud sound of frustration, and Ben gave him enough room to thrust his hips down onto his fingers, again and again. There were two fingers now, and Ben was dragging and stretching slow, then fast, the irregular rhythm making Hux angry and pushing him steadily closer to the edge.

Ben had grown more aggressive in sex, and Hux loved it. He could feel Ben meeting their physical intimacy like a challenge, a way to spend his frustration, his energy, his lack of surety. At a thought, Ben sank his teeth into Hux’s neck, low, just at his shoulder. He sucked hard at Hux's skin, and Hux groaned. He moved a hand between them, overwhelmed, still not able to last long under this kind of intensity, the subject of so much attention from Ben Solo.

When he couldn’t wait any longer, he grasped their erections, his fingers moving up Ben’s length, playing with the come that leaked from the head, swirling it around. Ben moaned into Hux’s shoulder, moving his mouth to the hollow of his throat. Ben wasn’t going to last long, but neither was Hux.

He squeezed, pumping Ben’s dick a few times, pumping his own once as Ben shoved his fingers hard inside Hux. Hux set his own teeth into Ben’s neck, sucking a mark high, just below his ear, where everyone would see it.

Ben’s knuckles drug over Hux’s prostate one more time, and it sent him over the edge. He felt his own come on his fingers, and Ben followed soon after, a wordless shout between them, their minds so intertwined that Hux could not sort the threads of his own desire. He admired Ben’s power, his abilities, his body, and somehow his own at the same time - his thoughts, his purpose, his surety.

He exhaled in amusement, his mind reeling with both sets of sensations. Ben gasped for breath, and Hux noticed they were also breathing in tandem.

He held his hands under the spray of the shower to rinse the come off, then wrapped them around Ben’s back. He felt a wave of possessiveness wash through him, and again, he could not tell if it was his own or Ben’s.

They finished cleaning wordlessly and perfunctorily, Hux’s legs shaking and his ass stinging pleasantly. They probably both still reeked of sulfur and the suckle blossoms, but neither Hux nor Ben could smell it anymore, and they would likely shower again when they woke. Hux should have been embarrassed about what had just happened, should have felt shame at letting himself get to such a state in front of someone. He should never have let himself go like this.

But it was Ben, and it didn’t matter. Ben could see this because he’d earned it.

They retreated to the bed, and at a barking command from Hux, the lights fell low, and Ben pulled Hux’s back flush to his own chest. Hux settled down into the blankets, exhausted and content, prepared to let his thoughts still, marveling again that he could be so comfortable with someone else in the bed with him.

“Hux,” Ben whispered into the darkness, and Hux gave an annoyed grunt in response, too close to sleep to articulate himself properly.

“Hux, I… have to go back to Hab-118 when we get back to Hosnian Prime.”

“What,” Hux mumbled. “You’ll come with me. I thought that was a given.”

“Come with you?”

“Yes.” Hux was too tired for this. The matter was settled. “To the First Order. To the base I’ll be training at. To help me.”

“I… can’t. Right now. I need more time.”

“More time to _what_ ,” Hux mumbled, rolling over in Ben’s arms, his drowsiness receding. “More time to discuss it with your uncle? To let him talk you out of it? You already know what he’s going to say.” He reached a hand up to cup Ben’s cheek. “And you understand what I’m doing.” A feeling of dread rose in him suddenly, and he squeezed Ben’s face. “You understand. All of it.”

“I do,” he said quietly.

“Then you don’t have to go back to the Jedi school.”

“Hux.” Ben’s hand came up, gripping Hux’s wrist. Hux did not relinquish his hold on Ben’s face, and Ben grunted. “I can’t do it right now. I don’t want to go back-”

“Then don’t,” Hux interjected angrily.

“Don’t do this,” Ben said more firmly, squeezing Hux’s wrist hard enough that the bones ground together. “I need more time.”

“Time,” Hux said, in a low, quiet voice. “And what are you going to do with that?”

“Hux. We can…” Ben closed his eyes. “Comm each other. Just give me another... year, or six months-”

“No,” Hux pulled his hand back and sat up, the sheet pooling around his waist. “ _Comm each other_.” He pushed his fingers through his hair. “That’s not…” It wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t be enough. Hux wasn’t going to be able to send comms from the base. Ben needed to come with him. “What do you need time to do,” he asked, frustrated again, his hands falling to his sides. He was losing his composure, he had been telling himself that this was exactly what was going to happen all week. But he was… reacting poorly. He was pushing Ben. Pushing Ben away. He shouldn't, but he couldn't stop himself.

Horrified, he heard himself ask, “Do you need more time to ask your uncle’s permission?”

“Stop bringing up Luke. I'm not going to tell him about any of this.” Ben was surly, growing angry. “But… come on, Hux! You know I can’t just leave everything behind. I have obligations to the other students. Training to do.”

“You have nothing!” Hux twisted the sheets in his hands. He couldn’t see Ben well, the room was too dark, but he could feel the pressure of Ben's powers, his anger and uncertainty. Hux was furious. He told himself again that he was pushing too hard, that he hadn't expected Ben to come with him this time, and that Ben would almost certainly come to him. But after that planet, and the shower. He thought this was settled. He thought Ben _knew_.

“You have training that means nothing because it’s not being applied. A teacher that guides you into a dead end and does nothing to encourage you to grow yourself in ways you want to explore. You have these powers and you waste them. Ben-” He took a breath, trying to curb his anger, and let it out anyway, knowing it was unwise. “I thought we were done with this. I thought you were coming with me.”

“Stay with me.” He heard Ben sit up in bed. “Can’t you… come to Hab-118 with me? Show us, teach us the techniques you’ve been training your soldiers in? Help us to get to that level?”

Hux opened his mouth to protest, closed it again. He realized he couldn’t, even if he wanted to, even if the suggestion hadn’t been completely ridiculous. He could feel his face heating, could feel his control slipping further, could feel the dread growing into an ache in his chest that he would do anything to stop. This wasn't him, this wasn't his plan. And yet. He simply couldn't stop himself. Ben was telling him _no_.

“I have a _job_ , I can’t just leave it!”

“Then why are you asking me to do that!”

They breathed between each other for a moment, both overwhelmed. Hux tried to calm himself.

“Because you _don’t have a job_ , Ben. You have more training, the same you’ve been getting for years. It’s time to leave that behind, you’ve learned all you can. Come with me. Do good. Learn those combat techniques from me and my soldiers. _Help us_.” The last was desperate, meant to be an appeal to whatever Ben considered good about himself. But it came out sounding weak, moreso than Hux liked. He clenched his fists.

“Isn’t it up to me to decide when I’m done with my training?” Ben snapped, matching Hux’s anger. “You treat me like a child that can’t make a decision.”

“You can’t. Your uncle makes all of them for you.”

It was the wrong thing to say. They were both furious, and Hux hated that Ben could read his mind fully, see every thought, every impulse, every violent thing he wanted to do. His desperation. His disappointment.

Ben pulled Hux into his lap, and they kissed, and it was teeth and tongues and much more selfish than it had been earlier. They yanked each other’s hair, and Hux felt the rasp of Ben’s beard against his face, unshaven for a day. He exhaled.

“Don’t do this, Ben.” It was as close as Hux would come to begging, but he put all of himself behind it, and threw his mind open, telling himself not to resent Ben, that Ben would see that this was important. Hux ached, felt as if he would be sick, and Ben simply had to come with him. That was all there was to it.

Ben was silent. Hux pushed himself away, knelt next to Ben, gripped his face between his hands.

“This planet, it wasn’t the best way to use your power. You know that.” He felt Ben’s silent, reluctant acknowledgment, and continued desperately, knowing Ben was worth the extra effort, the obvious show of what he wanted. “There are better ways. There are real wars, situations where your power could… it could make the difference for us, Ben. A difference between one meeting, and two months worth of prep work.”

Ben wasn’t swayed, and didn’t want to say so aloud. Hux tried again, squeezing Ben’s rough cheeks hard enough that his hands began to shake.

“One year, Ben. Give me one year, come with me. Try it, and if you still think that Jedi training is what you should do, I’ll take you back myself.”

Hux had never had something like this happen, had never faced such an utter failure. He felt like he’d been on the edge of something truly exceptional, so sure that this was the right thing. Now it was all being cruelly yanked away, and it felt as if his life, his new posting, and the rest of his career meant nothing. It was tainted unless Ben came with him.

He felt Ben’s fingers wrap around his wrists, and his forehead touch Hux’s. He made a wounded sound low in his throat, and Hux felt him respond in the depths of his mind.

_If I go with you, Hux, I won’t come back._

“Then that's what you should do!” Hux untangled himself from Ben and stood up, began pacing the room, restless and angry and desperate. “If you don’t come back, then you were meant to come with me, Ben!”

“I can’t.” He heard Ben make a choking sound, and Hux stopped, humiliated, as he realized Ben was on the verge of a breakdown.

“I can’t help it,” Ben snapped. “I don’t want to do this either.”

“Then don’t!” Hux’s voice was beginning to rise. This wasn't him, but he didn’t care. He’d never felt this way, so desperate, not even at the worst times. He shied away from those memories, suddenly loathe to share them, or anything else with Ben. He tried pushing Ben from his mind, and to his utter horror, Ben left willingly.

“Don’t do this, Ben. Come with me. Just for a year.”

“I can’t.”

“Don’t-” he felt something surging up, and it was out, humiliating, before he could stop it. “Don’t choose your family over me, Ben.”

Ben looked at him, his eyes wet, and Hux knew how it sounded aloud. Ben looked shocked. Now that it was out between them, Hux wanted him to deny it, to tell him it wasn’t like that. Hux hated that he'd phrased it that way, forced Ben to make the choice. Because he already knew what the choice would be. There was a voice in his thoughts (his father's) telling him to pull himself together, to let Ben have his year. Ben would certainly come to him if only Hux stopped, got himself under control, sent Ben away with a date to meet again. But he couldn't. He couldn't do any of that, and he hated himself for it.

A silence stretched between them, and felt bereft without Ben’s thoughts in his head, the easy way they had between each other. And suddenly, being here another moment was unbearable. He never wanted to see Ben again. He was defeated, humiliated. Ben had made his choice.

He groped in the darkness and gathered his clothes (mostly Ben’s clothes, he’d left his uniform in Cobalt’s hut) and began hastily pulling on his dirty underwear, his boots.

“Hux,” Ben said again, in that choking voice, and Hux only moved faster.

“Fuck,” Ben swore. “Lights, forty percent.”

Hux refused to look over at him. He had his second boot on, then cursed when he realized he’d forgotten to pull on socks first, something he’d done every day of his life. He stuffed the socks into his holster next to the blaster that Ben had bought him, then struggled to pull the robes (Ben’s robes) on.

His hands faltered when he heard a cracking sound, then the sound of a thousand tiny pieces hitting the floor.

He glanced up, and saw Ben’s blotchy red face, mostly hidden by the wet curtain of his dark hair. He was standing there naked, his shoulders slumped, the shattered hilt of his lightsaber in his hand, the distinctive red wire on its side trailing down his finger. The pieces were scattered on the floor. Ben held a shaking hand up, and a thin translucent slice gravitated off the floor.

Hux kept his eyes locked to Ben’s when he turned to face him, and he fought to keep his impassive expression in place, to show Ben nothing. He knew that red had crept into his cheeks, but he was too angry to care.

“Here,” Ben choked. “Keep this. And when… I want to see you, I can find you. You already know where to find me.”

Hux snatched the tiny component out of the air, looking at the wafer-thin clear slice. “And what is this? Some toy, some broken piece I’ll lose or forget, something that will shatter immediately-”

“It’s the focusing crystal,” Ben interrupted, his voice rising.

Hux stopped, his heart pounding in his chest, more blood rushing to his face. “You need this.”

Ben shook his head. “No. I… connected with it. Keep it on you, and I’ll be able to find you no matter were you are.”

 _Even if you won’t comm me_ , Ben thought, and Hux’s mouth went dry. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t be able to, and he wouldn’t anyway, because Ben had rejected him, Ben had decided that he didn’t want to go with Hux to the Order-

Ben had also just broken his lightsaber, because he wanted to see Hux again.

Hux thought about spacing the tiny piece. He thought about giving it to some Hutt. He thought about selling it. He squeezed his hand around it, letting the sharp edges dig into his palm.

“I won’t want to see you after this,” he said, far more calmly than he felt. He was making another decision, and he was equally sure about this. His rage flared and died, leaving an emptiness in his chest and stomach, a throbbing in his head. “You are choosing an empty path, a fruitless existence with your uncle, _over me_.” He gave emphasis to the words, and he knew Ben understood them. He finished pulling on the robes, not bothering to fasten them, covering himself sloppily in the rough, filthy fabric.

He turned to leave, but paused in front of the door, his back to Ben, his tone still flat and calm. “Don’t come looking for me on this ship. Don’t come looking for me ever again.”

He slammed his fist in the door controls and left, the robes trailing after him, his whole body shaking, his control slipping as soon as the door closed behind him. Dimly, he heard Ben beating against the wall as he quickened his pace down the hallway, the inside of his boots biting into the heels of his bare feet.

He didn’t care. He would never care again. That was all there was to it. It was a lesson worth having.


	11. Part Two: Yonec - Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a brief scene where Ren has a cut hand and Hux fixes it up that's meant to be sort of funny, but does describe the cut pretty graphically. If that's not your jam, skip the second short flashback.

Hux laid back against the hard surface of the table, and could think of nothing for several blessed seconds. The heat of the tabletop pressed into his back, and the sweat gathered uncomfortably next to his skin. All at once, he felt disgusting - covered in sweat and come and lubricant, allowing himself to be debauched in the Republic Senate. He hadn’t had such a lapse in…

It had been a long time since he’d wanted Ren as badly as this. His body still sang out with the satisfaction of it, and he let his lip twitch, annoyance at his state washing over him.

He sat forward, burying his fingers in his hair and resting his face in the palms of his hands. He noticed, again, that the buzzing noise in his head was gone, replaced instead by the barest hint of Ren’s presence. Hux recognized the dimness as something Ren did when he was pouting about something.

“Was the sex unsatisfactory?” he queried in a voice that was far steadier than he felt. He kept his face hidden in his hands, not looking over at the now-Senator of Motavia, who had rolled off the table and taken a seat behind Hux.

“What?” Ren sounded genuinely puzzled, and Hux glanced over his shoulder, taking in his comically bewildered expression.

“You would be pressed all over me, if we were ever together like that. On me. In my mind.”

Ren snorted. “Was I, in your dreams? Was it that good?”

The mention of dreams stung, as if Ren still didn’t believe any of what Hux was saying. “I don’t know, _Ben_. Was it that good?”

His withering look was enough to silence Ren, who thinned his lips and managed to look surly. He closed his eyes and pulled his fingers through the tangled wreck of his hair, slumping further in his seat. Hux sighed. He didn’t want to know what he looked like.

“You look like you’ve just been fucked.”

Hux turned to face him more fully. Ben’s eyes were still closed, his legs stretched out in front of him. “You’re reading my mind?”

“You’re practically begging me to.”

Hux rolled his eyes. “As if you could ever stay out of it.” Hux pushed off the table, resolving to clean himself up. A glance around the room proved that this would be difficult. There was no sink or water, and as he glanced at the pile of his clothes, he realized the best he could do was mopping up the mess with his undershirt, which he would have to wear out. His frown deepened.

Ren started laughing, the cruel laugh that was always at Hux’s expense. Hux felt relief at the mocking tone. More evidence that this was his Ren.

“No plan, General, for getting out of the halls of the Republic after being so well-fucked?”

“This is more your area of expertise, isn’t it Ren? Shouldn’t you have a diplomatic solution for getting a representative out of the Senate building discreetly?”

“Don’t call me that,” Ren snapped, sitting up and setting his own robes in order. Annoyingly, Ren cleaned up immediately, and didn’t look nearly as disheveled as Hux felt.

“You would rather be called Ben,” Hux said flatly, hating the sound of it on his tongue. It had been forbidden for so many years, and Ren himself had hated it. It was strange to use it for the man before him. Perhaps it would have been less strange on the other Ren, the Ren that had been so reduced and had wanted so badly to come with Hux. He had been more like the Ben Solo that Hux had met all those years before. Less like Kylo Ren, who was most certainly before him now, in every way but profession.

“I _am_  Ben,” he grumbled, running his fingers through his hair one more time. Hux was annoyed when it, too, settled into a kind of artful dishevelment, if not the neatness that he’d entered the room with.

Hux let the subject drop, as he knew it wasn’t worth pursuing at the moment. He gave himself a perfunctory wipe-down, then winced as he pulled on his come-and-lube-stained undershirt. Seeing Ben's hair gave him hope for his own, but he made a face as he pulled his own fingers through the wreck of his hair one more time. It was still stiff with product, and he wouldn’t be able to make it presentable here.

“It was a real question, _Ben_. Is there not a discreet entrance and exit from the Senate building? I’m not parading through the seat of the New Republic government looking like this.”

Ben smirked. “I should make you. It’s not as if anyone here recognizes you.”

“Your mother would.” And he thought, but didn’t say, that Leia Organa had even more of a hold on Ben Solo now than she ever had on the one that Hux knew.

He could tell Ben had overheard the thought. He was facing away, but his shoulders tightened and the room filled with the tense energy of his anger, the kind that was a prelude to some petty act of vandalism.

“We already destroyed the cups. Either you’ll shatter the window, or you’ll take me out the service exit so your mother doesn’t learn you did something unprofessional.”

Hux was almost satisfied as he watched the cracks spiderweb through the surface of the glass. Ben put his hand next to the window and leaned forward, still facing away from Hux. Hux buttoned up his tunic, watching him carefully. Strangely, the glass stayed shattered, but did not fall in.

Ben turned to him after a moment, some semblance of collected. Hux could see that he’d had more training in politics and etiquette, and someone had tried to teach him to control his face. It wasn’t terribly effective, as Ben was still obviously in a rage, but he wasn't as overtly angry as he normally would have been. He stalked over to Hux, the predator’s stride of Kylo Ren, and reached one hand up to Hux’s shoulder before pausing, looking unsure, and dropping it.

Hux smirked. “Did I earn the money I was pretending to ask for?”

Ben rolled his eyes, and his posture eased. “You didn’t even make demands. You sold yourself too cheaply, General.”

Hux raised his eyebrows. “Careful, Ren,” he said quietly, almost stopping himself before the other name was out, then realizing he didn’t care. This was so much like themselves, and Hux felt something tighten in his chest.

He swallowed, and saw Ben do the same. They studied each other for a moment, until Ben finally broke the silence.

“What was it that you expected to buy on your back?”

 _You_ , Hux thought, and surprised registered across Ben’s face, enough that he was glad he hadn’t said it out loud. He turned toward the door, gesturing.

“Civility, Ben. Show me a discreet exit from the building.” He paused, frowning, then turned back to him. “And a decent meal. Certainly you know enough about Republic City and my tastes to buy something that’s less abhorrent now?”

Ben’s eyes widened in shock, likely at Hux’s audacity. Hux put a hand out, offering the challenge, and Ben’s mouth opened, then closed. A dark look crossed his face.

“Presumptuous of you, to assume I can cancel my appointments for the rest of the day to take you, a random stranger who-” he gestures to the table, seemingly unable to get it out.

“We had sex. Are you still having problems with it?”

“No,” Ben snapped, storming through the door. Hux followed him, glancing around the hallway and pulling his cap lower over his hair. He had been able to put himself back together rather well, but something in him still didn’t want to leave out the front door with Ben Solo. A latent fear that something about this wasn’t quite right, that Luke Skywalker or Leia Organa or someone else would appear and steal him away, and Hux would never see him again.

He saw Ben’s shoulders hunch, and sudden anger went through him at the sight. He’d tried to break Ren of the habit so many times, to get him to stand straight, commanding, presentable. He didn’t have to fear anyone.

Mostly, it made Hux angry because he always looked that way when he returned from Snoke, who could somehow steal all of Ren’s confidence, no matter what he’d accomplished.  Ben straightened, glaring over his shoulder.

At that moment, a woman rounded the corner in front of them and stopped, looking briefly surprised before she schooled her expression. She was in the coarse, plain robes that Hux recognized from Ben's Jedi training so many years ago.

More than that, Hux recognized her face. He kept his expression guarded, but was more than a little surprised to encounter Jara Ren in the halls of the Republic Senate. He hadn’t seen her face in over ten years, but knew her tall, lithe build and her presence well enough. She was the second of the Knights of Ren, and hated Hux with a passion, not bothering to guard her opinion.

His shock ran more toward amusement when he saw the suspicion on her face, briefly, as she looked from Hux back to Ben. Ben stopped in front of her, the tightness coming back into his shoulders as he inclined his head in greeting.

“Master Lat.” He gestured to Hux. “Armitage Hux, of Arkanis.”

“General,” Hux corrected, eyeing her. She eyed him back, her expression wary.

“Master Lat is a fully trained Jedi, and engages with peacekeeping and negotiation as mandated by the Senate.”

A Jedi. Of course. Because Ben hadn’t destroyed the Order this time. Hux was suddenly curious. Fully trained? Was she stronger than Ben, then?

 _No_ , Ben interjected straight into Hux’s thoughts, and Hux glanced over, not bothering to hide his smirk.

“Master Lat, a pleasure to meet you. I hadn’t known that the Academy had graduated any Jedi.”

“They have,” she answered flatly, frowning slightly. “ _General_ , what brings you to the Senate today. Are you… meeting with Senator Sindian?”

“No.” He wondered if the Arkanis Senator would know him in this version of the First Order, but it was better not to take a chance. “It was to meet with Senator Solo. I was seeking funds for struggling planets in the Unknown Regions, and have heard of Motavia’s generosity.”

“Money, then.” The dismissal burned, though he kept silent as her gaze flicked between he and Ben again, her frown deepening.

 _Can she read my thoughts?_  he asked, though he was more curious to know if she’d be able to sense what they’d been up to.

_No, I’m blocking her. She’s suspicious, though._

That was fairly obvious. An uncomfortable silence stretched between them as Jara sized him up. He wondered if he was meant to believe she was pulling him apart with Jedi powers. She’d never been as strong as Ren, and had most certainly never approved of him.

He narrowed his eyes, glancing between Ben and Jara as something clicked into place. Ren's second in command, loyal enough to follow him from his destruction of the Jedi Academy into the First Order.

“When was your academy graduation, if I may ask?”

Jara held his gaze for a moment before answering. “Nearly nine years ago.”

Hux raised his eyebrows and glanced over to Ben. “Two years after Senator Solo left.” Without Hux’s influence, Ben had remained in the academy to the age of twenty-three, then left to apprentice with his mother.

“Yes. We spoke often of his career in the Senate, and I decided I wanted to take a more active role in politics. I finished my training a year after my decision, and have been aiding the Republic since.” She took a step closer to Ben, resting a hand on his shoulder. Hux stared at her hand, then at her face, keeping his expression neutral.

She smirked. “I hope your meeting went well, and that your aid request was approved. Though I’m sure Ben has informed you that having Senator Sindian make the request is the proper protocol. I’m sure it’s… difficult to learn such things so far out in the Outer Rim, though.”

Hux’s eyebrows rose, both at the insult and at the casual use of Ben’s first name. Her smirk widened, and she turned to Ben.

“Would you like me to walk with you while you see the… General out, so we can go?”

Ben took a step back, away from the grip on his shoulder. “I’m busy tonight. I have plans.”

Her face fell, and she looked at Hux, then back to Ben. “It’s Primeday. We always go out on Primeday.”

Hux took his own step back from the two of them as something heavy settled in his stomach, twisting there and making him ill. He kept his expression controlled. He held his ground, though part of him wanted to turn and leave. Leaving them together wouldn’t help him, wouldn't serve any purpose. He’d come here for Ben, and Ben wanted to stay with Hux. He'd just said so.

“We go out on Primeday when neither of us have plans. I have plans.” He scowled, stepping around her.

She turned. “With the General? With someone who just asked your constituents for money?”

“It’s to talk over the arrangements,” Hux said smoothly, putting a hand to Ben’s back and leading him down the hallway. Ben scowled at him, sending him something like loathing in his mind. Hux suppressed a smile, reveling in the connection again, even as Ben and Jara’s ‘arrangement’ echoed over and over through his thoughts.

She stepped around them and forced them to stop, glaring first at Hux, then at Ben. “That’s done in the halls of the Senate. You know that, Ben. You’ve never broken protocol before. It’s there to protect you. There could be rumors.”

Hux interjected before Ben could speak. “There will only be rumors if you start them yourself, Jedi Jara.”

Ben and Jara both turned and gave him an odd look. “I didn’t tell you her first name.”

Hux exhaled, beyond caring. He came up with a plausible-sounding lie. “I’d read about Jara before, when she was a student.” His hand went to Ben’s back again, pressing insistently, and the two of them continued down the hallway.

“Apologies, Jedi Jara. We have much to discuss.”

This time, Jara didn’t follow them. Ben looked amused when Hux glanced over, and he dropped his hand, the two of them winding down the hallways, past Senators and aides and other members of the government.

 _Jealous?_  Ben asked, because he was insufferable.

 _You told me you were a virgin,_  Hux snapped. The idea of Ren and Jara together was infuriating. Not just here, where they’d grown and trained and worked together far longer than Ren had been with Hux, but also because Jara had obviously followed him for more than self-preservation into the First Order. Her hatred, her devotion to Ren, and the number of missions they’d been on together all added up in Hux’s mind. He glared at Ben, burning to ask him about Jara’s intentions toward him on the _Finalizer_ , but this version of Ben Solo wouldn’t be able to answer his questions. Hux couldn't believe he'd never picked up on it before.

 _She’s had a crush on me since we were kids._  Ben kept his pace steady and his eyes forward as they threaded through the halls, not as distracted by this conversation as Hux was. That was also infuriating. Ren was supposed to be the emotional one. Hux could feel amusement again, muted, from Ren’s thoughts. _Yes, she followed me into the Senate. We have dinner a couple times a week. She’s mentioned a more formal relationship. I’ve never been interested._

Hux grit his teeth and followed Ben out of the Senate building. They went through the front doors, because why wouldn’t they. No confrontation could be as bad as Jara Ren, unless Leia Organa showed up and told them they smelled like sex. The heat of late afternoon and the cloying smell of the flowers hit Hux full-on as they emerged into the park. Hux forced himself calm, shading his eyes with one hand and looking over to the bench he knew so well.

It didn’t matter what Jara Ren wanted, or implied, or that she had a whole lifetime with Ren that Hux would never share. Ren had chosen Hux, Ren would choose Hux again and again. Ren would choose Hux now, and they would leave Jara Ren behind this time.

Ben gave him an odd look, glancing at the bench, then to Hux.

“This is where you dreamed we met?”

“It wasn’t a dream,” Hux snapped, still defensive. Even after Ben had ripped the memories from his head, he still didn’t believe that they were real.

“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” Ben continued. “But it didn’t happen to me. It wasn’t a vision. I dreamed it. You just… interpreted it differently.”

“In that it happened to me. And not you.”

“Mmm.  Right,” Ben added skeptically.

“I have-” his hand reflexively reached for his comm, where he had the holo of that kiss locked away behind many layers of security in his own personal files. He tensed, dropped his hand and clenched his jaw. That holo didn’t exist anymore. He hadn’t bothered to check for it, but he knew it would be pointless.

“You don't have proof. Because it never happened.”

“But you dreamed of this, didn’t you?”

Ben sighed, glancing over at Hux for a moment. “I did.”

Hux didn’t respond, instead guarding his thoughts more closely. They said nothing more as they walked to the edge of the park, to the main street where transports idled. Ben paused, looking at one of the transports, then glowering at Hux.

“I assume you’re as cheap as always, and I’m paying?”

Hux snorted. “You’re the richest Senator in the galaxy, I saw your planet’s exports. And besides, this is the New Republic. This transport ride will likely cost enough to feed an entire unit for a week.

Hux saw the corner of Ben’s mouth twitch, which probably meant that he’d hit close to the truth. Ben made a low noise, then all but tore the door off the closest transport, cramming himself into the tiny backseat of a tiny droid-driven model.

“Maybe you can choose a smaller one next time,” Hux stated as he folded himself up next to Ben, his knees digging into his chest, pushed up close into Ben’s side. “So we can look more like a pair of Haridian contortionists getting out of a tiny car for the amusement of children.” He shifted to try an alleviate an ache in his hips, and tried not to think about how scuffed his boots were getting. “Maybe you can perform magic tricks when we reach our destination.”

“Scion Corridor,” Ben barked at the droid driver, and the transport started smoothly ahead. Hux balked at the location, which was the well-known wealthiest neighborhood in Republic City.

“Why are we going there?”

“It’s where my apartments are.”

Hux was shocked to silence at the idea that Ren, of all people, would be wasting that kind of money. Ren, who constantly pushed for better food allowances, armor, weapons, and programs for the Troopers, who complained constantly about their frugal treatment.

Hux could feel Ben’s annoyance, and he looked out the window rather than responding to Hux’s repulsion. Hux sighed through his nose and did the same. He watched the transports fly by, most of them empty or with a single occupant. He watched the lavish architecture and the expensive offices roll beneath him. He felt the heat of Ben pressing into his side, his thigh. He felt a tightness between them, a feeling as if they should be grasping hands. Hux got the vague sensation that Ben was working himself up to it, and wondered why he didn’t simply do it. He left his own hand on his thigh out of spite, and was rewarded with Ben’s annoyance pressing into him like a caress.

He was nearly smiling as they entered the Scion Corridor, much to his surprise, and he adjusted his expression to something more authentically condemning as the transport drifted to a stop in front of a building that soared and outshone all the others. It was constructed of flecked green marble veined in gold. Crystal windows trimmed in wrought durasteel lined the walls like tiny portholes, long and tall and ridiculous. There were statuary barely visible at the top, frolicking children holding jugs that water cascaded over and down the sides of the building. The statues flanked a balcony that stretched the entire length of the building. He wondered who lived there, and if he'd recognize them.

“Right,” Hux muttered, carefully pulling himself out of the transport, ignoring the ache in his knees and back and turning to watch Ben swipe his ID chip against the droid. “And how much does this cost your constituents a month?”

“I don’t know,” Ben said thinly. “An assistant makes the arrangements for me.”

“Too important to spend the money yourself?”

“Hux,” Ben warned, using a tone Hux recognized as an indicator that they were about to have a real fight. Hux dropped it, though the decadence made his skin crawl. The building itself could probably pay for more than one Star Destroyer, or many, many campaigns in Wild Space.

Ben climbed gingerly from the transport, unfolding himself and stretching surreptitiously, glaring at Hux and daring him to say something about it. Hux only looked around at the pedestrian crowd, catching the gaze of a small child who had been staring at Ben at the transport before being pulled along by a parent. He sighed, looking back to Ben, whose expression still threatened violence. Ben stomped ungracefully past him, removing a code cylinder and leading him into the building and through the tiny lobby. There were Gamorrean security guards posted at both the entrance and near the vertical lift leading up into the rest of the building. They were neatly dressed, clean and very official-looking security.

“Good evening, Senator Solo,” one near the lift greeted him. He turned to Hux. “You brought a guest?”

“Is it so surprising that the Senator has company?”

The Gamorrean turned to Ben. “I’ve never seen you with company, Senator.”

“No need to tell my guest that, Gruten,” Ben mumbled, waving a hand as he stepped past and onto the lift.

“Of course, Senator. Enjoy your evening. Comm if you need anything brought to your rooms.”

Hux raised his eyebrows as he stepped onto the lift, watching the containment field blur the view of the opulent lobby as the lift closed and began to rise up through the building.

“Jara has never been your guest?”

“ _Hux_ ,” Ben warned, not turning to look at him. Hux almost smirked.  _Hux_ , not General.

The lift rose slowly, and Hux found an overwhelming impulse to rile Ben. “Why are we going to your rooms? Have you learned to cook at some point? Has your mother taught you?”

“ _Hux_ ”, Ben gritted out, yet another warning, and this time Hux's shoulder was pushed back into the side of the lift. “I can’t take you out in that uniform,” he hissed. “You’ll be arrested for impersonating an Imperial.”

“That’s a crime here?”

“Of course it is.” Ben released him and stepped back.

Hux cocked his head. “They can’t arrest me for wearing my own clothes. Don’t you have respect and tolerance for other cultures here, or some garbage like that?”

Ben crossed his arms petulantly and ignored him. Hux only had to wait a moment for the lift to halt in front of a large, heavily carved wooden door. Annoyingly, Ben rallied, having obviously thought of a comeback, looking him smugly up and down as he put his cylinder to the door and it opened in front of them. He gestured Hux through.

“You can’t wear that where we’re going. It’s a little…” Ben looked him up and down. “ _Inappropriate_.”

The implication made Hux’s blood boil, and he hated it, hated getting needled by Ben like this, who apparently still knew all his weaknesses. “There’s nothing wrong with my uniform! It’s the finest-”

“Kola wool,” Ben finished, leading Hux into an arching, domed space framed by windows. He turned back around, stroking Hux’s shoulder, more softly this time. “Custom. For your sensitive skin. I know how you enjoy complaining about coarse fabrics.”

Hux thinned his lips and stared at Ben, but his expression gave nothing away. Ben would only know that from his dreams. Ren knew it, though.

 

  
_They laid together, exhausted and sweating. Hux had met Ren at the hangar after he'd been nearly five months training with Snoke, and they'd not been able to get to the rooms fast enough. It had been nearly three years, but Ren still acted like a starving man at the sight of Hux after an extended time away. Hux’s uniform lay all over the floor of their bedroom, along with Ren’s robes and both pairs of boots._

_Hux stretched, rolling onto his side and arching his back, pressing into Ren. The mess on the floor was far from his mind. Ren had nearly exhausted him, and he’d scheduled himself off for the rest of the shift. He wasn’t getting out of bed, and was hoping that Ren would let him rest a moment before he rallied._

_He grunted as Ren pulled him close, then stretched over him, leaning his full weight against Hux’s chest as he reached for something on the floor. It pressed the breath from Hux’s lungs, and he cracked an eye as the cool fabric of his tunic dragged across his skin, the shoulder gripped in Ren’s fist._

_“You weren’t very interested in my uniform earlier.”_

_“It was in the way.”_

_“It was,” Hux agreed easily, allowing himself to relax again._

_“You love this,” Ren mused. “Your uniform. You love wearing it, and you love it when I take it off you. You never get tired of it, or how you look in it.”_

_“Because I know it looks good on me.”_

_“You never wear anything else.”_

_“There aren’t a lot of other options,” he drawled, rolling over and opening his eyes again, watching Ren study his sleeve with the tunic in his lap._

_“But you_ love _it,” Ren insisted, looking over at him. “You don’t love anything, and you’re not vain. But you love this uniform.”_

_“Mmm,” Hux agreed, taking the other sleeve in his hand. “You know how much I hate your robes. Your Jedi robes, and the ones you have now.”_

_Ren snorted. “Coarse. You say they’re coarse. You say it all the time.”_

_“Because I don’t like getting a fabric burn when I suck your dick,” Hux said, more irritated than he should have been. The comment made Ren laugh, which was a difficult thing to do, let alone after he'd come back from Snoke. It transformed his face, and he could feel his chest shaking. Hux smiled, rolling over_ _onto his back again, one arm above his head, the other draped over his eyes._

_When Ren's laughter stopped, he was torn between leaving it at that and answering Ren's question. He was comfortable enough for some of the truth, he decided._

_“_ _The old Imperial uniforms were made of gaberwool,” he began. His first set of academy uniforms had been gaberwool, and he’d been so proud of them. The children’s academy uniform had knee pants and high socks, and he distinctly remembered the first time he put on the thick, stiff fabric. He’d been ecstatic._

_When they’d fled the academy, he’d worn the uniform until it was soiled and filthy, long after he outgrew it, because they had nothing else. After that, all the cadets, trooper and officer, had been forced to share the same ill-fitting, leftover remnants of whatever Imperial gaberwool uniforms they could find. The ones Hux had been forced to wear always excessively large until he grew older, when the pants were always too short. Gaberwool didn’t age well, and turned rank after several years of use, making all the cadets smell constantly of wet animal. The skin on their knees, elbows, and the insides of their thighs grew raw and calloused where the rough fabric constantly rubbed, not meant to sit next to skin without the appropriate underclothes._

_They also got dirty, had holes in them, and looked terrible. The adults had been able to keep their own uniforms that wore out more slowly over time. The cadets looked like a band of savage children, which they were._ _Having to pull on that ragged uniform every morning was bitter, and made him think of those times at the academy when he’d been so proud._

_He pulled his arm back slightly, cracking an eye at Ren. “Gaberwool is awful. We switched to Kola wool when I was eighteen, when we conquered the ruling class of Perola. It’s the finest victory the First Order has had yet."_

_He closed his eye and covered it again, not wanting to invoke the bad memories when he was so content. But maybe Ren would know anyway, could read his mind every morning when he pulled on his uniform made especially for him, and admired it in the mirror, knowing what it said of him, and knowing how hard he worked to have it._

_“Mmm,” Ren agreed. He shifted, and Hux could hear his tunic hitting the floor again. “I like it better off.”_

_“I know you do,” Hux grinned, and he felt Ren’s weight atop him again, his lips pressing in below his ear._

 

 

Hux glanced at Ben, wondering if he’d dreamed that about Hux. If he had, he gave no indication, and it was too private to ask about. Instead, Hux crossed his arms and looked around the room.

He was struck by how empty the space was, for all that it was the size of a ballroom and the wall and floor coverings were suitably elaborate. There was more gold-veined green marble laid out in large slabs on the floor, an orange grout standing out starkly between the tiles. The walls were covered in the same pale orange mineral that served as grout, something in it sparkling where the light hit it. The high ceilings had been painted in a mural, a startling likeness of the galaxy. Hux recognized the constellations as those that were visible above Republic City. One wall was an enormous window that offered an unobstructed view to the city center, though Hux was relieved it had no balcony, as the top suite obviously did.

It was a beautiful room, but unfurnished. The only furniture in the main room was a bed pushed against one wall. A small kitchen area was tucked into one corner, a large conservator with a short length of counter next to it, a few cabinets, and an island counter tall enough to stand at, with a single stool. The counters were clear, and there was no visible cooking equipment. Aside from the kitchen area, there was a door near the bed and another near the main entrance. The room was otherwise completely bare.

It was so like Ren to have no possessions. The resonance twisted tight in his chest, and his excitement built again, the surety that this was the right thing. Whatever had happened to him, this would end it and he and Ren could set it right.

He walked over to the island and trailed a gloved finger over the counter idly. As he was studying the wall, searching for a mechanism that might reveal cleverly-hidden cooking appliances, he felt a hand around his waist. He found himself abruptly turned, his lower back forced into the counter, and suddenly Ben was there, kissing him deep and long, his lips and tongue hot and wet against Hux’s own mouth.

He closed his eyes and let Ben indulge, though he did not embrace him, instead supporting himself on the counter behind him. When Ben pulled away, he had a faraway look in his eyes.

“You are exactly like you were in my dreams for all those years. I can’t believe you’re real.”

“I told you, I’m no dream. And those are memories.”

Ben cocked his head. “But they didn’t happen. They aren’t true, either. It wasn’t a vision.”

“It was,” Hux’s voice was firm, sure. “They happened to me. I need-” He stopped, closing his mouth. He could sense, somehow, that it still wasn’t the right moment for this. Ben was enamored, yes, and this was almost certainly Kylo Ren in every way. His movement, his attitude, even his rooms. But something stopped him. His stomach growled, and he raised his eyebrows.

“I believe I asked you for a meal, not an analysis of our shared experiences,” he said, more firmly than he meant it. But Ren had always responded well to a certain kind of insistence, offering Hux something like thoughtless obedience most of the time, and complaining or refusing the rest. 

“I told you, you can’t wear that where we’re going.” He looked Hux up and down again. “And I doubt you want to go anywhere else while you smell like sex.”

Hux frowned, looking down at himself. “I don’t care particularly about that, though I would like to discard this undershirt. Just give me another, my uniform will be fine.” He paused. “It’s culturally appropriate, correct?”

“No,” Ben mused, and Hux didn’t at all like the look he was giving him. “You’ll need something else.”

“R-Ben,” Hux warned. “You know I don’t wear anything else.”

Ben’s eyes went to his. “You’ve worn my clothes before. Out to dinner. In the New Republic.” He inclined his head, a smirk at the corner of his mouth. “Or was that a dream, too?”

“No.” Hux began undoing his tunic, not really wanting to fight about something as inconsequential as an evening outfit. “At least you aren’t living with your mother. I don’t know that I could tolerate that.”

Again, Hux could see that Leia Organa was a sore spot. Ben glowered, turning away stomping across the room, throwing open the door to reveal a closet and disappearing inside. Hux could tell at a glance it was full of rich garments, which surprised him. That was unlike Ren.

“Ben,” he called. “A ‘fresher. Before I die of hunger.”

The demand for a meal had been a test, to see how much Ben remembered of their dining habits, and an attempt to throw Ben off balance. It had worked wonderfully in those ways, but Hux was also desperately hungry. He’d grown sick of eating the poor First Order rations, literally and figuratively, long before he left them behind. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to pack very many, and had eaten very few of them. He’d been without food for nearly twenty-four hours, and was growing lightheaded.

“The great General of the First Order, unable to use process of elimination,” Ben replied, muffled, from inside the closet, a throb of annoyance shooting through Hux’s head.

Hux scowled, turning toward the other door. “For all I know, those are the servant’s quarters.”

“Yes, because the ‘fresher is public here, like a Trooper barracks.”

“It makes more sense,” Hux responded testily, pulling off his boots and dragging his suspenders off his shoulders.

The ‘fresher was baffling, more complicated than even the one in Ben Solo’s Republican hotel had been. The room was done in soft pink stone, the tub rough under the soles of Hux’s feet. There were too many knobs and buttons, and Hux managed to take some sort of perfume-enhanced shower, smelling like those damn flowers on Ventu. The cloying sweetness hung around him as he strode naked but dry from the ‘fresher, his ID tags clicking together against his chest. Ben’s focusing crystal wasn’t between them, and he wondered, idly, if it ever would be now.

He pushed the thought away. It was silly. He didn’t really need it if he had Ren.

“Ben, I need to comb my hair back. Where do you keep your product?”

Ben had produced a thin wooden chair from somewhere, and was sitting in it near the closet, long legs stretched out in front. He had changed and neatened his own hair. His outfit had morphed into a sleeveless, tight fitting red-and-white tunic that showed off his arms and powerful chest to great effect. He was wearing a floor-length red-and-white pleated skirt to match, his feet still bare, his expression careless, his hands curled over the thin arms of the chair.

Hux glanced over and saw there was an outfit folded over itself on a hanger, dangling from a hook set in the back of the swinging door. Hux straightened his back when he saw Ben’s eyes moving up and down his body freely.

“Before I die of old age.”

“Please, help yourself. It’s not as if you’re a guest in my exclusive Senatorial suite. Be as selfish and demanding as you want.”

“Don’t bother. Give me my outfit, and let me fix my hair.”

Ben wrinkled his nose. “Why did you use the honeysuckle in the ‘fresher?”

Hux glowered at him, then strode up and snatched the outfit off the hook. He unfolded it, then grew even angrier.

“What is this?”

“There’s not much in my closet that would… fit you, General,” Ben said, dragging his eyes up and down again. “Your selection of clothing, which I should mention is free for you but is actually quite expensive, is limited. I chose this.”

“Choose something else,” Hux snapped, tossing the garment into his lap. Ben smirked, unfolding his long body from the chair and rising.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Ben,” Hux warned, “I’m not going out in that.”

Ben shook his head, his smile broadening into something more cruel. “You don’t give me orders here,” he said quietly, dangerously, and his presence began pressing in on Hux from all sides. Hux crossed his arms and straightened his back again, giving Ben his blank, impassive face. He had never been afraid of Ren, and he wasn’t about to start now.

Ben stepped closer, all but pressing their chests together, using his height advantage to look down his long nose at Hux. “You don’t tell me what to do, and in fact, we’re going out on my planet, with my money, wearing my clothes.” Ben stepped back, unfolding the garment again and holding it up to Hux’s bare chest. “You’ll go out in this, or naked, or not at all.”

Ben’s eyes glittered and held Hux’s, and Hux could tell there was no winning this argument. Ben felt the concession, and his expression softened.

“Let me dress you.”

Hux scowled, allowing his eyes to follow Ben as he got the ridiculous garment onto Hux’s body. There was a pale silk floor-length underrobe, very loose and billowing. It cinched at the waist, and he felt Ben’s thumbs trailing along his skin, the warmth of his hands as he smoothed it at Hux’s hips, cinching it carefully, the skin of his calloused fingers catching against the delicate fabric.

Hux caught one of his hands after he finished the elaborate tie. He ran his own fingers over the pads of Ben’s, then along his fingernails, his palms, the backs, stroking the fine hairs there.

“These aren’t Senator’s hands.”

They weren’t Kylo Ren’s hands, either. Kylo Ren’s hands had thick, knobby knuckles that were frequently split, bleeding, scarred. The skin was thick and shiny around the back of his hands and wrists from the many burns he’d given himself on the quillions of his lightsaber. He bit his nails and cuticles, and they were always torn and bleeding. Hux rubbed his thumb down the back of his hand to his wrist. He’d had a deep scar there, one that Hux had patched himself with bacta, to Ren’s furious, howling protest.

 

_“It’s fine,” Ren insisted, trying to pull his hand back._

_Hux glared at him as he secured his forearm with one of the cuffs on the bed in the Commander’s medical suite. “It isn’t fine, Ren. If you want a non-medical reason, you’ll bleed all over the bed in our room if you leave it untreated.”_

_“You wouldn’t have even noticed it if I had changed my glove.”_

_“The fact that it didn’t occur to you to cover your mutilated hand is charming. This is deep enough to cause permanent nerve damage.”_

_Ren pulled at the cuff hard enough that the frame of the bed groaned ominously. He was furious, and in a lot of pain, shaking hard enough that blood was spattering on the clean sheets and onto the uniform pants Hux was wearing. Hux didn’t fool himself - Ren had allowed him to cuff his wrist to the bed, Hux wouldn’t have managed it if he hadn’t. But Hux eyed his forearm wearily, unsure how Ren would act if he managed to free his arm from the bed. He acted fast, stripping the remnants of Ren’s glove from his hand quickly, to Ren’s howling protest._

_“Ow, fuck! That was a blaster burn! The fabric was melted to it!”_

_“Good. Then I’m preventing an infection.” Ren had only a moment to react before Hux doused his hand and wrist in the disinfectant wash that was applied before bacta. Normally, this was done carefully, dabbing the wound and making sure it was clear of all obstructions. But Ren would not have allowed this, so the fluid was wasted, soaking the mattress and the knees of Hux’s already-ruined uniform pants, soaking down into his boots and into puddles on the floor._

_Ren’s reaction was poor. The rail was torn from the bed, and the bedframe shuddered but held. Hux shifted back slightly, not wanting the bed to collapse on his feet. Ren was snarling and swearing, holding his forearm, still strapped to the separated rail. Hux snatched the rail, yanking his arm straight again._

_“You can’t even move your thumb properly. Hold still.” He pulled one of his own gloves off with his teeth, dropping it into the puddle of disinfectant already on the floor. He didn't take his eyes off the gaping slice in Ren's hand, examining the edges, still leaking blood, for foreign matter._

_“You lied,” he stated mildly, his observation nearly drowned out in Ren’s still-continuous moans of pain. “This isn’t a blaster wound. This was done with a blade.”_

_“I was a_ little busy _, I didn’t keep track of who did what.”_

_“A good commander is aware of all weapons and fighters on the field of combat,” Hux returned, keeping his eyes on Ren’s wound. It had nearly pierced his entire hand, and there was definitely muscle and nerve damage. Hux could see tendons through the slice. He quickly smeared bacta on with his fingertips, holding the rail steady with his other hand and thigh as Ren bucked in pain on the mattress._

_“You should have a droid suture this. You don’t want me to do this.”_

_“I don’t,” Ren barked. “Leave it. No droids.”_

_Hux sighed, quickly pulling a suture wand from the sleeve of his tunic, sloppily stapling the gaping slice closed as fast as he could._

_His saving grace was that Ren would not harm him as he gave him medical attention - Ren would smash droids and throw the medical officers against the wall, but he would never do anything to hurt Hux. Thus, Hux was the one that treated him, always, or delivered a tranquilizer if he needed a more serious procedure done. But he knew not to test the limits of Ren’s care for him. He treated Ren as quickly as he could, usually planning what needed to be done as he drug Ren into the private Commander’s suite._

_The trade-off was that Hux’s medical attention was sloppy and inexpert._

_“I don’t know why you won’t let me just give you a tranquilizer and anesthetic and let a droid do this,” he snapped, tossing the spent suture wand aside and examining the crooked, gaping sutures he’d given Ren. They’d do well enough for the bacta. “This will scar badly, and you probably won’t be able to feel touch around it.”_

_“Will I be able to use my hand?” he gasped, his face turned away from Hux._

_“Yes, you’ll be able to use your hand and fingers, I think.” He smeared more bacta into the cut, then wrapped Ren’s hand quickly in a soft bandage. “We’ll change the dressing after two shifts. The bleeding will stop by then. You should have less pain. Keep it wrapped for two days after that, and if you have trouble with your hand…” Hux glanced up at him. “Tell me. Don’t lie.”_

_Ren let out a shaky breath, turning to Hux to scowl. “I want the scar. It reminds me of what I did wrong.”_

_“Why do you need to remember getting a wound in battle, Ren? Hasn’t it happened often enough already?”_

_Ren reached over and removed the cuff from his forearm, bringing his bandaged hand close to his face to examine it. “Weren’t you the one that said good commanders were aware of everything in a fight? Isn’t this why?” He offered his hand to Hux again, who sneered, bending over to retrieve his glove._

_“Those aren’t my words, but they’re true. But how will a scar remind you of that?” As he was bent over, Ren released the barrier separating their thoughts, and Hux winced as Ren’s pain and remorse flooded into his head. He closed his eyes and oriented himself again before sitting back up and pulling on his damp glove. He scowled over at Ren. “Not acting like a child whenever you’re wounded will also help make you a better commander, able to assess your own limits and weaknesses.”_

_“The pain feeds the Dark side of the Force.”_

_“I’m sure it does,” Hux responded, rolling his eyes. “It also goes against your rants about letting the past die. Isn’t this an attempt to_ learn _from your past?”_

_Ren ignored him, swinging his legs around to the side of the bed and shakily pushing himself to standing._

_“Careful, Ren. You lost a lot of blood all over the floor of the transport and my ship.” He reached an arm out to steady Ren as he stood. “Slowly. We’ll walk back to the rooms together.”_

_Ren scowled over at him. “I can manage myself.”_

_“You can’t.”_

 

It hurt, suddenly and inexplicably, that these imperfections somehow didn’t exist. It made him uneasy, made the humming start in his head again. He swallowed, dismissing his unease. Kylo Ren was right in front of him, whole and powerful.

He looked into Ben’s face and ran a thumb along his brow. “Did you see that?”

Ben swallowed, leaning into Hux’s touch. “Yes. All of it. I… hadn’t dreamed that before.”

Hux's thumb continued down Ben's face, down his nose, across his cheek and down the side of his neck, pausing with his thumb over Ben’s pulse. Where his scar from Starkiller had been. Hux nodded. “Perhaps you aren’t much of a Senator. But you aren’t really Kylo Ren either, are you?”

“No.”

_Not yet._

Hux wasn’t sure where the thought had come from, himself or Ben. He stepped back, holding his arms out.

“If you’re going to insist on this ridiculous costume, get on with it.”

Ben went faster this time, wrapping Hux in the still-more-delicate fabric of the over-robe. It was alternately dark gray and black, a diaphanous layer on top of the white skirting, then translucent swathes of fabric that wrapped around his chest and arms, leaving little to the imagination.

Ben did this quickly but artfully, and Hux admired the neat work he made of it, though he still loathed the idea of going out half-dressed. Ben stepped back to admire the outfit.

“You’ll need the silver armbands,” he decided, turning back to the closet.

“I draw the line at _jewelry_ , Ben. I will not go out in such ridiculous adornment.”

“You don’t have much of a choice,” he answered idly, stepping inside the door and rooting through a small chest against the wall.

“I’ll starve, or I’ll go out naked. I refuse. I won’t wear something so decadent and wasteful.”

“You’re wearing something around your neck now.”

“These are ID tags. And you’ve expressed fondness for them in the past.”

Ben’s hands paused, and he slowly slid the drawers of the chest closed. He stood for a few moments in silence before turning to Hux, face closed and unreadable.

“You shared your memory with me, so I’ll tell you a story. There’s a Republican tale about an Emperor in a system far away who ruled long ago. He was very wealthy, and very proud.” Ben stepped forward, and began running his fingers through Hux’s hair, arranging it to his liking. Hux hated being handled like that, but he crossed his arms and tolerated it, willing to remain silent since Ben wasn’t going to make an issue of the jewelry.

“He commissioned the finest outfit, made from the best fabric, by the most clever artisan in the kingdom. The tailor charged him an exorbitant fee, but promised the Emperor and all his subjects that he would produce the finest clothes. An outfit so perfect that no one would argue with the Emperor’s taste or decisions. Anyone who spoke against it would be incompetent or unfit for their status. He said it was a magic he wove into his fabric, to make it worthy of only those who were the best.”

Ben took a step back, looking Hux up and down once again. “When he finished, he presented the outfit to the Emperor, who could not see it. But not wanting to admit this, he allowed the tailor to dress him in it. None of his advisers could see it, and allowed him to leave the castle and parade in front of his subjects, who also could not see it. The tailor had scammed him. There was no outfit. He’d paraded around naked, because he was too proud to admit that he’d been beaten.”

Hux sighed. “Is there a point to this?”

Ben shook his head. “Just that your pride is vast, General.”

Hux allowed himself a small smile.  "And which of us do you think is too proud to admit defeat, Ben?"

" _Hux_."

“Do you think me foolish enough to take what someone tells me at face value?”

Ben rolled his eyes, stepping around him, the rich fabric of their skirts hissing together in passing. “No, but not everything can be immediately understood, General.”

“That’s why I have you. You’re the one that handles the mystical problems. You can meditate on those all you like.” Hux followed him, debating whether to demand a thigh holster for his gun. The skirt of the robe was cut away so that he (or presumably Ben, which was even more puzzling) could draw one, but he looked at Ben’s back from behind, the broad muscles that were barely concealed under the thin fabric of his tunic, his thick arms, the tendons of his neck. He still walked slightly hunched over, as if he was likely to spring out an attack at a moment’s notice.

No. Ben could keep him safe.

As he stared at Ben’s back, following him out of the empty suite, he could sense Ben noticing his regard. He felt the tendrils of arousal that wound through Ben’s thoughts, and got the sense that Ben was thinking about the way Hux’s hair had felt as he touched it and told that story.

It was more than Ben had shown him since they’d had sex, and Hux took it as a good sign. Proof that they were closer, that he could soon make the obvious suggestion that they leave and return to the First Order, and Ben wouldn’t do the necessary pantomime of acting outraged, feigning loyalty to his family, and defending the importance of his duties as a Senator.

No. Ben Solo belonged to Hux, and always would. Regardless of whether Ben had vague dreams or fifteen years worth of memories, when the time came to leave, he could feel that Ben would come with him.

 

* * *

 

“A loaf of salted Caridan flatbread, and a glass of water,” Ben said in a deep, affected voice to the serving droid, snapping the menu closed and looking over at Hux in challenge.

Hux glared at him, turning to the droid. “A bottle of Dac Yellow, ABY 3, if you will. I find that I have a taste for the reconstruction vintages.” He met Ben’s eyes and continuing his order. “And a dewback steak, rare, bleeding. A side of Viamarr blackroot, sauteed.” He closed his own menu and handed it to the droid. “A shame my partner doesn’t have an appetite.”

Ben’s face went red, and he immediately grabbed the serving droid. “Red Kemaati soup,” he rushed out, and Hux glanced away when he realized it was the same soup they’d had at the other restaurant in Republic City. Charming.

The droid ambled away, and Hux admired the privacy they had been given. He had no doubt this was one of the most exclusive restaurants in Republic City, on a completely different level from the one they’d been to that first time. They had taken a transport to a private viewing pod, where the walls were entirely glass, and through a trick of light and projection, they could see neither the floor below them, the transports leading to it, nor any of the pods that were presumably suspended in air above them. It simply appeared that they were floating hundreds of feet above the Republic City skyline and the lines of transport traffic.

Which would be more impressive, if this wasn’t a power that Kylo Ren possessed, and had exercised at least once for the duration of a meal on a bet.

“I didn’t dream that,” Ben mumbled, looking off to the side and out over the city.

“You didn’t think the Troopers would be able to defend against the Sel’denti slugthrowers, and I bet that there wouldn’t be a single casualty. I won. We celebrated by dining above the treetops of Sel’den II. You didn’t appreciate the view. You claimed that it took all your concentration to keep us aloft.”

The droid reappeared and poured their wine, leaving the bottle in a silver bucket of ice. Hux watched the beads of condensation roll down the side of the bucket as he took a sip. Wine still wasn’t to his taste, but he didn’t want to miss the opportunity to order the most expensive bottle he could think of, if only to squander more Republican credits.

“It sounds like you took advantage of me,” Ben said sullenly, sipping at his own wine and slumping back in his chair, pausing a moment before adding, thoughtfully, “I’ve never tried something like that.”

Hux was silent, staring out over the city again. Hux had wanted to see if Ren was capable of something like that, so he had phrased it as a challenge, knowing that Ren would enthusiastically accept and go through with it. Ren had strained and complained through the whole meal, not touching a bite of the sandwiches and fruit that Hux had prepared. As Hux took his time, Ren’s complaints had silenced and his discomfort had grown tangible. Hux had consumed his sandwiches in peace, though had been increasingly fearful that Ren would lose control of his Force. As he had hastily finished the final bites of sour fruit, he hadn’t been able to stop imagining the table falling a hundred meters to the treetops, their careers ending with the two of them impaled side by side on the dead branches of a Hok fir.

But Ren had done it, though the table had grown increasingly shaky, and they had fallen the last couple meters. Hux hadn’t minded the crash after such an overwhelming show of strength and control, and he hadn’t truly believed that Ren could hold them up for the full forty-five minutes of their bet. Ren had, and had been nearly exhausted in the aftermath, but Hux had drug him back to their quarters, extremely impressed and aroused by Ren’s feat. Consequently, Hux had done a rare performance himself - showering Ren with praise as he knelt behind him and used his tongue to open Ren from behind, an act that drove Ren nearly to orgasm by itself. Hux did it so rarely that Ren had never gotten used to it. Hux admitted to himself it was a little cruel to force Ren to control himself, again, after such a show, but Ren had let himself go, moaning and calling Hux’s name, and Hux had called him _mine, mine_  and had evened out the sweet pleasure by opening him up roughly and fucking him.

Hux could count on both hands the number of times he’d taken Ren. It was always memorable. He turned back from Republic City, with the sun sinking low to their left and the sky awash in blues and pinks and oranges, the lights flickering on slowly below them. He looked at Ben instead, who was studying him intently.

“It was a good memory for both of us,” he conceded, before he could consider the words. Unable to hold Ben’s stare for a moment, he looked down, sipping at his wine again. “The view was better. We were above a sacred forest, not above this waste of sentience, money, and construction.”

“Why don’t you tell me how you really feel, General?”

Back to _general_ again. Hux met his eyes, setting the wine glass down. “How much do you remember?”

“I don’t remember anything, I told you. I dreamed of you. Often.”

Hux shook his head. “What was our last great accomplishment, the last thing that you dreamed we did together?”

Ben shook his head. “The last one I had was… we were on a planet, a forest, with a tiny sentient species. Naked. You were angry. We went down into a cave…” He trailed off, wrinkling his nose. “I must’ve woken up before that.”

“No, not that. Before that. A victory.” He paused, trying to decide how to ask about Starkiller. “Did you dream anything significant in 34 ABY, during Administration Week? Or before that?”

Ben shook his head again, looking out over the city. “Nothing specific. We were… on a snow planet. A lot. I was… looking for my uncle. Relentlessly. He’d betrayed me.” Ben’s face darkened. “But I didn’t dream of the snow planet after that.”

Hux rolled his eyes. Of course Kylo Ren had no idea what Starkiller Base was doing. Hux took another sip of wine, evaluating the best way to get to the subject he wanted.

“How is your life here, as a Motavian Senator?”

Ben’s shoulders tensed and his expression darkened, but otherwise his features didn’t move. “Enjoyable. It’s important work. Speaking for the Motavians is rewarding, as is speaking to others, such as yourself, who seek their wealth and evaluating the best use of it.”

Hux suppressed a smirk. He sounded more like a Senator than Ren. Hux let it pass. “And how do you make those decisions?”

Ben’s shoulders moved fractionally closer to his ears, his grip shifting on his own glass, untouched. “A number of factors.” He gestured with his other hand, leaning back in his seat. “It’s political. Not worth getting into.”

“On the contrary.” Hux leaned forward. “I love hearing about New Republic politics. Tell me how that process works.”

Ben glanced out the window. “I evaluate the appeals, of course, meet with the representatives. I present good candidates to the ruling council on Motavia, and they make the ultimate decision.” He turned back and met Hux’s eyes again. “But ultimately it’s my choice. They trust my judgment.”

Hux held his gaze, and could sense the lie. “The other senators have no say in this? Just you.”

Ben looked back out the window. “Why would it be any of their business?”

“It’s money,” Hux responded dryly. “That tends to be everyone’s business, because everyone wants it.” He sat up straighter, his eyes not leaving Ben. “But you have the final say where it goes. Fascinating. You must have a great deal of political power here.”

“Yes,” Ben said shortly, and Hux could feel his annoyance pressing in. “Maybe we should talk about something else. It’s rude to discuss politics at the table.”

Hux stared at him, and took another long drink from his glass, draining it. He reached for the bottle, curved it delicately against the lip of the bucket to rid it of the moisture, and refilled his glass.

“Something you learned at your mother’s table?”

“You keep bringing her into the conversation,” Ben responded tersely, hunching over the table. “Maybe you’d rather be meeting with her instead of having dinner with me.”

“I did.”

Ben’s eyes widened. Interesting. He didn’t know his mother was vetting his appointments. Or at least this one. Hux pushed harder, placing both hands in his lap. “I was under the impression that, if I wanted your money, I had to ask her.”

Ben’s eyes went to the wineglasses, and they shattered, spilling the golden wine into the fine white tablecloth, spraying tiny shards of glass everywhere. Jagged stems on beautiful cut bases remained. Ben’s eyes went back to Hux.

“I didn’t quite hear you. Could you repeat that?”

“Let me rephrase. I scheduled an appointment with you, and your mother was the one who showed up instead.”

“My mother has nothing to do with this!”

“Ben, _she came to your meeting instead of you_.”

Ben shook his head, eyes not leaving Hux. “That’s not true. You were early. I happened to have free time-”

“I wasn’t early!” He brought his fists onto the table. “What reason would I have to lie to you about this?”

“To set me against my family!”

“I don’t need to do that!” Hux stood, bracing his palms against the table. Was it worth it to reign in his temper? Not now. Ren had always been more easy to argue with, unable to come up with arguments against Hux’s logic when they were in such a state. “I know you. I know you better than you know yourself. And I know that you hate being under your family’s control.”

“I’m no teenager that you can sweep away, General,” Ben all but growled. “I have my own life. Responsibilities. Duties.”

“And how much of that do you have to run by your mother? Tell me, were you asked to represent several planets before deciding on Motavia as the best fit, the most meaningful use of your time?”

When Ben said nothing, Hux continued.

“And where does all the money go, after your mother tells you what to do with it?”

“She’s been a politician for forty years, Hux. Longer than you’ve been alive! She knows the best ways to use it!”

 _Hux_. Not _General_. “Tell me. Tell me what your mother does with the funds.”

Ben leaned back, crossing his arms dangerously. “Infrastructure. Utilities. Education. Those are the three big ones. Planets that are looking for funds for any of that almost always get aid.”

At that point, a droid rose through the floor. They stood silently on opposite sides of the table as it vacuumed up the broken glass, replaced their tablecloth and glasses, and poured them new ones. Lastly, it set out two bowls of clear soup and tiny soup spoons.

When the droid was gone, Ben sat down, foregoing the spoon and tipping the entire bowl of soup into his mouth, slurping noisily. Hux scowled, taking his own seat.

“Do you do this all the time?”

Ben wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, glaring at him. “You didn't earn any better.” He paused, watching Hux bring the spoon to his mouth before continuing. “When I first dreamed of you, it was… disturbing.”

Hux paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth, allowing his expression to tighten incrementally before taking his time with the soup. It was too salty. “Disturbing.”

Ben nodded, staring at him intensely. “It was disturbing, because I knew it was just a dream and not a vision. But you were telling me things that no one had told me before. Things I had never… thought. And I couldn’t stop thinking about it after that. That being in my uncle’s Jedi school was a waste of my powers. That our peacekeeping missions were empty gestures. That I wasn’t suited to what I was doing. I got even worse at meditation after that. My uncle and I talked about it a lot, and I tried telling him about my doubts, but he told me I needed the structure. He was probably right.”

Hux continued to eat his soup, watching Ben carefully. His expression and posture didn’t alter. It wasn’t a bad memory. He let him continue uninterrupted.

“I started dreaming of you again, and of how I was helping that army. Growing my powers in the Dark Side. After that…” He shrugged. “There wasn’t anything my uncle could do for me. We both tried for another year to get my… routine back under control, but I kept having the dreams, and I kept losing control of my power and focus. Eventually, we decided I might try to take a kind of Jedi trial, to become a full-fledged Jedi Knight. If I could pass it, it would prove I had enough control to do what I wanted, and I could reach for my own goals.”

Still no signs of tension or anger, though Hux sensed this was a story that ended in failure. Because he was very certain about the man sitting in front of him. “You are not a Jedi.”

Ben shook his head. “No. I’m not. But I tried for a year to pass the trials. My uncle gave me all the guidance he could.”

“Your uncle? Did you not dream of what happened between the two of you?”

Ben scowled, and Hux felt the edges of a dull anger there. “No. But in the dream, I knew he had badly betrayed me. Tried to kill me.” The anger dulled, and he looked more defeated. “He never gave up on me, but he never understood me, either.”

Hux held his breath. Understanding. Ben Solo had given him the key to his loyalty in his present circumstances. Hux leaned back in his chair slightly, exhaling, nodding encouragingly, biding his time. “So you sought out your mother’s guidance.”

Ben nodded, his face going more neutral. “She knew me better, and I am doing better work than I was at the Jedi Academy, but…” He made a face. “We don’t get along. There’s… a lot to this. And I’m…”

Hux nodded. This wasn’t what Ren was good at. Ren needed direction, but he also needed to feel free. There was nothing free about being a Senator. And Hux had a hard time imagining Ben in any sort of life where he wasn’t in battle, using his body and his powers. It was who he was.

Ben’s jaw clenched, and he nodded. “I kept having the dreams. They… helped. And didn’t.”

He thought of Ben working with his mother, with Jara Ren. He couldn’t help the shocking jealousy that bubbled up inside him at the thought of the latter, that she had always had feelings toward Ren, and may have known him even better than Hux in some ways. “Does Jara’s lifestyle appeal to you?”

Ben looked amused, and he sat up straighter, his eyes glinting. He opened his mouth to speak, likely something insulting. But he closed it a moment later, looking thoughtful. His face fell, and he continued.

“Jara once went to Phu, which is colonized by Bardottans and another humanoid species. The humanoid species is Force-sensitive, though not in the same way that she and I are.”

Hux was surprised. “Does she recruit while she does her missions?”

“No. Uncle Luke closed the academy after we left, said he was a failure as a teacher." Ben waved this away. "The Phuan humanoid’s relationship to the Force is profound. They have an innate Force-bond with one other individual in their lifetimes. So their culture is unlike humans. They don’t date or have casual romantic relationships, and they don’t have a concept of physical attraction, or any of the social power balances that go along with that. Each of them will only ever be attracted to and love one other person, and that other will know and understand everything about them, and share their life.”

Hux stared at him, and could feel his face turning red, his pulse jumping in his throat, though he altered nothing else about his posture or expression. Ben’s face had grown red, and his gaze had dropped in the telling of the story. Hux should have prepared himself for this, had thought they’d been over this in the Senate office earlier. He never knew what to say when Ren started in on these things, and his recent experiences had his jaw clenched tightly against his usual dismissals. But he wanted to end this conversation. Badly.

Ben’s eyes rose from the tabletop, and he met Hux’s gaze defiantly. “Jara told me this because she said her Force bond was with me, that she felt a profound connection between the two of us. But I told her it wasn’t true.” He swallowed, reached for his wine without breaking Hux’s gaze, then drank the entire glass in three swallows. “I knew it was you, that it was the person I dreamed of, but I didn’t think you were real. I thought I received the dreams as some sort of punishment, or as a result of my connection to the Dark.”

Hux couldn’t help the first flippant comment that came out of his mouth. “Am I everything you dreamed of?”

Ben rolled his eyes. “They weren’t always good dreams, but yes, you’re all of it.” His eyes moved over Hux’s face. “It’s strange that I know you so well, even though we only met this afternoon. It feels like forever.”

Hux was real enough. If Hux was fair, he had gone through a great deal of trouble to find Ben to get what they had together back. He knew full well it was rare and special, but that was because it was Ren. Ren was an exceptional individual, and everything about him was more of a headache than it should be. But it was also always worth it.

“I was… punished,” Hux began, dropping his gaze. Ben had already seen all this, but part of it had… bothered him. “Between us, I don’t think it’s a Force bond.” It was probably Hux being stubborn and manipulative. “But it’s like you said.” He met Ben’s gaze again, this time with his own sort of defiance. “The last place you dreamed of, that was Ventu. When we went there, I said aloud that our lives are bound, but we went into some sort of… mystic cave, or something, and I… said something I shouldn't have so that we didn’t have to talk about it. After that, I woke up without you, and had to find you again. It’s happened twice, and I’ve found you both times.” He dropped his eyes again, toying with the tablecloth. “I don’t think it’s the Force. On the planet, you didn’t seem to think that the religion was Force-based. But am I being punished for that?”

It was out, and contrary to the relief he was hoping the admission would bring, he found that he was terrified, particularly by Ben’s puzzled expression. Ben shook his head slowly.

“I… saw that. But I don’t know what that is. I don’t get the sense that it’s to do with the Force. And I don’t feel anything particularly… unusual about you.” His mouth turned down after he’d said the last, and Hux leaned forward, angry.

“You’re lying.”

Ben looked chagrined, and then got angry himself. “Not like _that_ ,” he hissed, turning crimson, and it took Hux a moment to realize he wasn’t angry, just embarrassed. “You feel different in the Force because you’re you. I can’t stop-” he closed his eyes, clenched his jaw, shook his head.

_I can’t stop thinking about you, feeling you out, I can’t stay out of your head. And all of it is so easy._

Hux relaxed, leaning back in his seat, trying to tell himself that this wasn’t quite Ren, that he’d need more convincing than it seemed right now. But he put a hand over his mouth, because this was so much better than-

“The other you,” he said, quietly, almost behind his hand. “When I woke up without you the first time, I found you. You were… sick. We went to Ventu, and I didn’t realize going down in that cave would… make me wake up without you again. What happened to… the you that was ill?”

He closed his eyes, and finished. _I left you behind when you needed me, and I can’t stop thinking about it._

This was as awful as admitting that he believed he was being punished by the Force, except it was about Ren, to Ren. When he didn’t open his eyes after a few moments, Ben answered directly into his thoughts.

_I don’t know, Hux. I don’t know what happened to you, or what Ventu is. But I’m here. In front of you._

It wasn't a comfort, and it didn't answer his questions. It only proved that they were difficult. Hux opened his eyes and found Ben’s, who was looking at him like he knew all this. Because he did. Hux was lost, really, and even after everything, after all this, it was terrifying to give himself to Ben in this way.

And though he knew he shouldn’t, though he knew it was the wrong thing, he couldn’t stop himself from asking a question that was better left alone.

“Both times, when… what happened to me, when I woke up without you, you’ve known who I was. That other time you said you had… all-consuming visions, and this time you said it was dreams. But you never tried to find me. I’ve been the one that went to find you, after I woke up and you were gone.” Hux shook his head. “If you really thought I was… what you said I was, why didn’t you believe I was real?”

Ben looked affronted, and Hux felt the spike of hurt in his thoughts. “I did! I did searches for you all the time. You never showed up anywhere.”

“You didn’t try finding the First Order? Or any of the other places we went?”

Ben was more angry now. “I never really knew where I was in the dreams. And the First Order is a joke, some rumored Imperial remnant that no one takes seriously. No, they didn’t show up in any of the searches I did. I would have recognized you immediately. I _did_.”

Hux narrowed his eyes. Ben was lying. “You were surprised to see me when you entered the meeting room. You didn’t recognize my name? My likeness? Try to contact me before that?”

Ben glanced to the side. “The appointment was with General Hux. I… don’t look carefully at the identities of the reps I meet. Sometimes. I get summaries.”

Hux clenched his jaw. That was fairly authentically Ren, but it was so infuriating and _difficult_  that Hux couldn’t control his reaction.

“Fantastic. So I had to meet your mother, and go through- All of it! Both times, Ren! Do you know how hard I had to search to find you the first time? And how difficult it was to get a meeting with you here?”

“Three times,” Ben smirked, leaning back in his chair. “You came to get me the first time, too.”

“Ren!” He laid both his palms on the table, resisted the urge to flip it childishly onto Ben. “You’re the one that’s speaking of _Force bonds_  and _understanding_ , but you’ve done nothing.”

Ben, still supremely relaxed, raised his eyebrows. “You weren’t here to tell me what to do. I can hear your thoughts, you deciding what to tell me to get me to come with you. That you _understand_ me, and that's what will make me stay with you.” He shrugged. “You aren’t wrong about any of that, all the stuff you've been thinking of to make me want you.” He cocked his head to the side, not able to resist a smirk. “But maybe you’re the one that can’t live without me after all?”

Hux stood, then sat down again. He wanted to leave, but couldn’t. Not without Ben. He hated it. He hated Ben. He hated that he’d offered his feelings to Ben and had them thrown back in his face.

“That wasn't really you offering your feelings. I made an observation. One that hit too close to home.”

“ _Shut up_.” Hux glared at him, his hands clenching on the edge of the table.

Ben leaned forward, suddenly dangerous, his expression dark. “Why don’t you try it, Hux?”

“Try what?” he scoffed. If Ben thought he was stupid enough to physically attack him, he didn’t know him well at all.

“Offer me your feelings. See what happens.”

Hux stood again and stared at him. In the moment, he loathed him. He hated the way he’d tangled himself inextricably in Hux’s life, and he hated the way Ren always made so much extra work for him. He hated that Ren needed guidance and direction to _come find Hux_ , and he hated that Ren was forcing them to have this conversation. He hated that he couldn’t leave here without Ren, and he hated he would regret anything that came out of his mouth in response to this question.

After it became clear Hux wasn't going to say anything, Ben leaned back, disgusted. “Your petition for money was denied, by the way.”

Hux took a seat slowly, shaking slightly, forcing himself back under control. “Did you get that comm before or after our meeting?”

“She sent it during,” Ben replied sullenly.

“And so, because she doesn’t like me, she’s condemned three planets to death.”

“Don’t pretend you wouldn’t have bought weapons with that money.”

“What do you think the weapons are for, Ben? Not every situation can be resolved with a trade agreement or a meeting. You know that. We’re trying to keep the peace in the Unknown Regions, the Outer Rim, and we can’t just negotiate with warlords! If we spend the money on weapons, it would be to defend those planets. More than likely we would have bought food with it!” When Ben’s face remained impassive, Hux went on, knowing he was pushing this too far, and that it was the wrong thing. Ben knew all this, and it wasn’t why he had come here. He needed to leave with Ben.

“You can see how I might not agree with the New Republic’s legislation, where education is paid for while others starve due to personal grudges.”

Ben rolled his eyes. “If it will get you to shut up about it, I’ll give you the damn money. She won’t like it, but I’ll do it anyway.”

He closed his eyes, willing himself to end the fight. “It’s not about the money. That’s not why I came here.” Although it was, a little, but Hux had to steer himself back on course. “This, all of this,” he gestured between them, “It’s about you not having the freedom to grow and do as you wish! Even what you just said, about giving me money, you have to qualify with a statement, _to me_ , that your mother wouldn’t like it!”

Ben’s mouth twitched. He was truly on the cusp of losing his temper. Hux didn’t care at this point, he just wanted Ben to apologize. To say that Hux knew him better than any member of his family. To admit out loud that he was miserable.

“I am miserable! Are you happy? I’ll say it, if you’ll stop… whatever it is you’re doing.”

Hux felt more of a surge of Ben’s presence in his mind, as if admitting to reading Hux’s thoughts re-connected them. Frustration, rage, a desire to end this conversation. Strangely, possessiveness, and a low-level arousal that didn’t suit the situation, but Hux relished all the same. It was a connection, it was _their_  connection.

“I don’t have to read your mind or know anything else about your life here to know you're miserable. I knew it as soon as I found out you were a Senator. You hated your Uncle and the useless path you were being told suited your powers. You hate your mother, because your current life is too regulated and not suited to your personality. She strikes me as ruthless, and probably encourages your mind reading and other little powers you hated using when we first met.” Hux cocked his head. “You are better at it, by the way. I didn’t sense you in my mind at all.”

“Of course I’m good at it,” Ben snarled.

Ah. He wondered if Ben was stronger than Leia, if Leia kept Ben close, so he could tell her what others were thinking.

“No,” Ben insisted. “She can do it too. She’s better at… influence than I am. She can make them do what she wants. I’m better at reading their emotions.”

“A regular pair,” Hux said lightly, dipping his small spoon into what was left of his soup. It was cold. He looked back at Ben, and admitted to himself that he was stung by the partnership with his mother. It was similar to what Hux and Ren did in negotiations, though Hux used words to influence rather than the Force.

Ben sneered at him. “You’re so like us. Just a politician, with all the same flaws. Why is it better when you do it?”

“I actively save lives. I make planets better places. These people don’t need enlightenment, they need food and protection. The New Republic hides behind a mask of civility while they rob the rest of the galaxy for higher ideals.”

“ _Stop_ ,” Ben said, putting up a hand and scowling. “I hear enough of your screeds in my dreams. I know your party line.” He flexed his fingers and carefully pulled Hux’s soup away from him, downing it again in one swallow from the bowl and stacking it inside his own empty one. Hux frowned. The soup tasted wretched cold.

Ben sighed and opened his mouth, but before he could continue, the droid re-appeared with their meals. The soup Ben ordered looked just as Hux remembered, red and plant-y and with the crispy noodles floating at the top. His own steak was the size of the plate, large and seeping blood and staining the Viamarr blackroot pink. He wrinkled his nose again, but he was hungry enough for it, so he delicately began cutting it apart with his knife.

Ben, predictably, was slurping loudly with his spoon, studying Hux from across the table. They ate in silence for several minutes before Ben broke it.

“I understand your vendetta against the New Republic, General.” Again, _general_  instead of _Hux_. Ben shook his head, and lowered his eyes, murmuring the next comment. “I hate it too. I hate when I have to approve grants for opera houses, for a new governor’s quarters. I wonder how that’s any different than paying off a corrupt Moff.” He raised his eyes again, and paused in his eating, gaze intent.

“And I know, despite anything you say to me or my mother, that your ultimate goal is to get rid of the New Republic government. But I don’t understand. You’ve probably thought about this a lot. You know that anything you destroy will earn you a grudge. That’s how my mother’s Rebellion started. She’d do it again in a second, if she thought it necessary.”

“She has. Or did,” Hux admitted. “They call it the Resistance. They tried to stop us before we came for the New Republic. Certainly you know about that? You were, or rather are, responsible for tracking down Resistance cells.”

Ben’s lips thinned. “I’ve… seen it in dreams, but I didn’t understand that’s what it was.” He leaned back in his seat. “I hate my mother that much?”

Hux put a neatly cut piece of steak in his mouth. It was cold, though he was hungry enough to appreciate it all the same. “You hate everybody that much.”

“So, how do you deal with the Resistance? Rebellions have brought down smarter and more ambitious people than you.”

Hux thought there were few that were smarter or more ambitious than himself. You had to have a fair amount of both intelligence and ambition to pursue Kylo Ren the way he had. Ben frowned, Hux’s thought obviously overheard, so he continued.

“You did not see anything about the purpose of Starkiller Base in your dreams.”

Ben shook his head. “I don’t recognize the name.”

“It was the snow planet you saw. That was Starkiller Base.”

“So it was a base for… what? To station us closer to the New Republic?”

Hux liked the casual ‘we’ here. He was nearly there. Nearly ready to bring Ben back with him again.

“It was a planet in the Unknown Regions. It’s proximity to the New Republic is irrelevant.” He took a sip of wine, his eyes never leaving Ben’s. “It was a kind of remote Death Star. We simply turned it toward Hosnian Prime. No splinters, no opposition. We destroyed what little there was of the Republic defenses along with the entire government. There was no coming back from that. Reconstruction is not nearly far enough in the past that people have forgotten the miserable times.” He set the glass down carefully, lowering his eyes to cut his steak again. “And we made it clear that everyone’s lives would continue as normal in the Core Worlds, once they tightened their belts and downgraded their wardrobes.”

Ben was silent, and Hux let it stretch between them, eating his meal and waiting patiently for Ben’s response.

“All those people,” Ben whispered. “That would be a massacre. You’d kill so many innocents.”

Hux deliberately set his fork down, and brought up his datapad. He entered calculations, a short program, then slid it to Ben across the table.

“What is this?” Ben asked, picking it up and frowning at it.

“There are wars on the surfaces of the three planets I came to get aid for. That’s a death count estimate, starting from the time we first opened negotiations, failed, and then engaged the rogue governments.”

The count was in the millions, with the numbers at the end counting up steadily, jumping with every documentation filed during a city or village clean-up. There were several underway at once on the surface of all three planets.

“Those are just three planets. There are many others. We only have the resources to fight effectively on those three fronts, currently. And your mother would rather fund universities than help those people.” Hux gestured to the city beneath them. “Sacrificing all this? I’d do it in a second. It’s decadent. It’s bloated and unnecessary.” He straightened his posture, his eyes burning, meeting Ben’s gaze and clenching his hands tightly in his lap. They were Ren’s words, not his, that came next, but Ren’s words suited this situation. “I want to burn it all down.”

Ben studied him for a long time. The silence stretched between them again. Ben sat the datapad on the table with a heavy clinking noise. Hux could feel his reactions - agitation, confusion, interest. That low-level arousal. Something about Hux’s passion had always done for Ben, much to Hux’s chagrin. But it always worked in his favor. He needed Ben fascinated.

But Ben, of course, asked the question Hux wasn’t prepared for.

“Is that _thing_  still with the First Order?”

It was like pouring ice down Hux’s back. He knew immediately what Ben was asking, and couldn’t help but think of the derision, the cruelty he’d faced before he'd left.

Ben picked up on it, and his eyes darkened. He leaned back in his seat, shaking his head and opening his mouth. Hux didn’t want to hear it. He interrupted.

“It would be the first thing we did when we got back. We would go straight to his throne room and kill him.”

Ben leaned forward. “We can’t, Hux! Do you think I don’t know that? He can… he can see.” He crossed his arms and stared out the window. “A lot of the dreams I have without you in them. He knows how much we both hate him. And he.” Ben’s voice grew tight, and he swallowed, still not looking at Hux. “He’d taunt me with it. Push me further to the dark. Threaten to bring you in and torture you. He’d play with me that way. Bring you in to report on something petty, so I could see how confident and contemptuous you could be. And he’d punish me for it. I’d stand still as he… twisted. Everything. My thoughts, my muscles, sometimes it felt like my soul. It was to show me what would happen to you if we ever stepped out of line. And I was never strong enough to stop it from happening to me.”

Hux had never known this about Snoke and Ren. He was speechless, then furious. How dare-

“We couldn’t stop him. Then or now. He can see it coming. We wouldn’t stand a chance.” Ben shook his head, then looked at Hux. “I won’t go back to that. The rest of it-” He held Hux’s gaze for a long moment, then gestured to the datapad, out to the skyline of Republic City. He sat back in his chair. “You’re right. About all of it. But I still won’t go back to Snoke.”

Hux stood. He hadn’t anticipated Snoke being unbeatable, that Ben’s hatred of Snoke would stand between them. Part of him understood, but the other part-

“This is intolerable.” He slammed a fist on his table. “He’s not omniscient, nor immortal. We simply have to choose a method that will work.” He began pacing. “The turbolasers, the orbit-to-surface missiles on the dreadnought, he lives on a planet-”

“And you don’t think he has failsafes in place for that? That he’s not far enough underground to block the turbolasers?”

Hux grit his teeth. It occurred to him, belatedly, that the mineral content of the soil of Selor would also absorb turbolaser cannons. He cursed.

“There’s _something_. We’ll find it. Together.”

Ben watched Hux pacing, arms crossed and leaning back in his chair, legs spread. It was a show of laziness, casual disregard, though Hux could sense Ben’s nerves, could sense Ben knew exactly what he was doing, what he was saying.

“You say that I have freedom with you. That my family keeps me and stifles me.” Ben shook his head. “But in my dreams, I’m controlled and exploited far worse. By Snoke. By you.”

“You developed your powers!” Hux snapped. “You accepted and declined missions as you wished. It suits you, all of it! I always chose your directives to challenge you. To cater to your strengths. Things that only you could do, where you could do the most good.” His voice had gotten high, defensive. He was losing his position. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

“It did suit me.” Ben stood, body relaxed, arms by his side. “But it was still a prison. It’s one for you, too.”

“It’s not a prison! Do you… were you really happier with your family than you were with me?”

This wasn’t relevant, it didn’t matter. The tactic was that Ben was helping more people. He was free. He made his own missions, he did good, it didn’t matter what he thought of Hux.

Ben stood and put his back to Hux, walked across the invisible floor to the wall looking out over the central part of the city, to the Senate building.

 _No_ , he said, directly into Hux’s head. _I was always happiest with you. In my dreams, you always understood me. And you understand me now. I don’t want to enter my nightmares, either._

Hux was nearly speechless at that. There was nothing he could say if Ben had woken up to Snoke’s training as a _dream_  for all these years. Not even Hux could convince him to willingly subject himself to that reality.

Still. What else was there?

“Come with me, Ben.” Hux made it an order, because Ben had to do this. It was the only avenue available.

 _No_.

“Ben!” Hux was frustrated, took several steps toward him, then stopped. “Do you know where I went, when I was looking for you the first time this happened?”

“Here,” Ben said flatly. Not a question.

“When…” Hux trailed off, and decided to say it. “When I woke up, and you weren’t there, and everything was different. My memories didn’t match reality.” He rushed on, because he didn’t want to linger on that. “I went to Coruscant. There were people there-”

“Hux,” Ben interrupted, his voice low and quiet. Sure. More confident than Hux. The buzzing noise started in Hux's head again. “I don’t want to hear any more about the oppressed.” He turned to look at Hux. “You can stay here. You can’t go back there without me.”

Hux could stay. The First Order was nothing without Ben Solo. Hux had seen it. And they also needed Hux. It would falter and die without him, too.

But Hux needed the First Order, too. He’d built it, made it everything he’d always dreamed of. He’d learned and grown and suffered, he’d shaped and molded it. He’d had all his victories there, his defeats. All his worst times, and his best. They’d _won_.

No part of Hux could accept defection to the New Republic. But he was being forced to make a decision between Ben Solo and the First Order. He couldn’t choose. He needed both. They were both who he was.

“You won’t be convinced,” Hux said, flatly, the memory of the last time they’d parted like this coming back to him. “You’re choosing them. Again. Your family.” And it wasn’t like that, it wasn’t that simple then, and it wasn’t remotely that simple now. But Ben had presented him with an impossible choice, and rather than make it, it was easier to blame Ben. And he couldn’t stop himself from doing it. It was horrifying, all of it.

Ben shook his head, stepping forward, hands clasped behind his back. He had a look of anguish on his face.

“You convinced me.” He said simply. “I’m not choosing my family. I just. I’ve seen it, Hux, and neither of us were happy. You don’t have to go back either. I’ve only known you a few hours, and I want you to stay with me. You want it, too. We don’t have to stay here, we can go somewhere else. Find something new. Isn’t that enough?”

It wasn’t.

It just. Wasn’t.

Hux felt it again, the misplaced despair, his fury, his sense of rejection. All those things that had happened the first time Ben hadn’t come with him. He knew he shouldn’t walk away, that it was a mistake. He knew it then and he knew it now, but he couldn’t stop himself.

Last time, Ben had come for him, but it had taken a massive betrayal from his family. He looked at Ben now, thought about what they had been discussing earlier. If it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else. He’d have to wait on some other major life-changing event, some other betrayal-

_Hux leaving him behind_

-that would drive Ben to him. Or maybe not. Maybe Ben would just decide he wanted to, that he hated his life that much. But even if he only had to wait a year again, he couldn’t stand the thought of spending another year in this version of the First Order. He couldn’t.

And he couldn’t do anything else.

Ben took a step closer, shaking his head.

 _You can’t_ , he insisted in Hux’s head. _Don’t do this. Stay with me this time. You came to me, you’re real. Stay, and we'll find something to do together. Whatever you want. It’s not a defection if they fall apart without you._

Hux shook his head, and Ben took another step forward, thinning his lips, looking absolutely wretched in that way that made something inside Hux twist, the thing that could only ever be affected by Ben. By Kylo Ren, who was here, and still Hux’s, but didn’t want Hux’s terms. Didn’t want the First Order.

 _We’re bound, Hux. The dreams were a warning. I’m not meant to go back there. I’m supposed to keep you here_.

That just…

No. His memories were real. They were better. They belonged to both of them. Hux wanted it back.

He closed the distance between them and kissed Ben again, hands on both sides of his face, kissed him until they would both suffocate, kissed him hard. Ben tried to make it softer, gripped Hux around the waist, kissed him desperately, but the more Ben tried to gentle him, the angrier Hux became. He wanted to taste Ben’s blood, leave him with torn lips and regrets. Ben’s thoughts flooded his mind, and it was difficult to tell who wanted what. His hands moved, roving over Ben's chest, his hips, his arms.

He pulled back, glaring. “Is this where you give me your kyber crystal?”

Ben shook his head. “You already took my credit chip. I can trace that just fine.”

Hux held it up between them. “I need it to get off-planet.” He'd rather have the kyber crystal, but it served no practical purpose. Leaving without it made everything worse.

Ben put a hand to the back of his head. “You’re going somewhere. You’re not going back to the First Order. Come back when you’re done.” He lowered his voice and spoke low, directly into Hux’s ear. “Don’t go back to him. Don’t pick Snoke instead of me.”

Hux backed away, back to the trapdoor in the center of the pod. He kept his eyes on Ben, then hit the catch on the floor that triggered the lift.

And it was that easy to leave. He had Ben’s credits, and he used them to book a transport across the city. It was silly that he felt as rejected as he did. But he knew what he had to do. He couldn’t have any of this. He needed Ben. He needed the First Order.

He cursed when he realized his uniform was still in the Senatorial suite. Somehow, the loss of his uniform on top of Ben was intolerable. But he couldn't go back for either.

As he got further and further away from the skypod restaurant, Ben’s presence in his head diminished until he felt it snap, and his head filled with the buzzing absence of Ben again. He put his face in his hands and didn’t look out at Republic City again, did nothing until the droid on the transport informed him they’d reached the public spaceport.

And so he did it again, boarded his transport and programmed the coordinates back to Ventu. Stripped out of the translucent outer garment, the delicate white skirt, and put on a pilot’s uniform.

Much the same as last time, he landed on the planet and pushed through a ring of sentients jabbering away at him. Still no protocol droid. He hadn’t brought one, didn’t think it would come to this again.

He went to the cave, and the sentients stayed outside. He nearly slipped and fell down the stairs, nearly gagged on the overpowering floral smell, which, yes, was the same as whatever Ben had had in the shower. Honeysuckle.

He was furious. How dare he. How dare he make Hux come here again.

He stopped before he got to the bottom, and spoke aloud, feeling nothing but his rage.

“Ben Solo,” he bit out between his clenched teeth, his eyes staring blurrily down into the darkness. “Damn you. You aren’t right. You and I, we are the First Order, no matter how much you resist it. It’s ours. As long as it’s ours, I will pursue you to the ends of the galaxy to bring you back to me.”

He shook his head, wondering if that was the kind of thing he needed to say in this place.

It was silly. It didn’t matter.

But it did purge the anger from his heart, replacing it with an overwhelming despair, a feeling of failure that he knew he couldn’t come back from. He had no idea what he’d do from here, if he reached the bottom of these steps and found an empty stone altar, then had to climb back up.

He would find out. It would be the first step in what came next. He would probably just go back to Ben. He continued his descent, vision blurry.


	12. Part Three: Laüstic - Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some warnings: Hux wakes up with a cybernetic arm. He is upset about this, not really because the natural arm is missing, but because he suspects the loss wasn't accidental and because the cybernetic tech is very outdated. He has phantom pain, and does dwell on the strangeness of the overnight change. It won't come up as often after this chapter (and is confined to this part), but just an FYI.
> 
> He has a different situation with Bariss as well, though they are not in a romantic or physical relationship, and they both respect that. That situation is also confined to this chapter. If you need more details, see the end notes.

Hux woke, jerked from sleep once again by panic. The sickly-sweet scent of flowers dissipated around him. He blinked, and remembered sooner this time. The cave. Ren.

He managed to force his body to relax under the sheets. It took only a moment of consciousness to recognize his failure this time, because. He glanced around the room, and it was _different_. Not only was Ren once again absent from his bed, the bed itself was also absent. Or, rather, the bed he was in did not belong to him. The mattress was a narrow pad, the bedding coarse and gray, the pillow thin. He frowned at the roughness of the sheet against his legs as he shifted, disliking the way the fabric chafed against his thighs. It was unmistakably Imperial surplus, the musty smell that clung to it confirming its age as much as its texture and economy.

He also recognized the multi-occupancy quarters granted to those ranked Major and below. There were two bunk beds and four footlockers in dull Imperial gray, illuminated by a harsh overhead light that could not be turned off. These quarters in particular belonged to an Imperial Star Destroyer, though the design was similar to what they used on the _Insurgent_ -class line.

Hux blinked in the bright light, finally sitting up, letting the thin sheet drape at his waist and reaching to run a hand through his hair. Was he younger? He hadn’t slept four to a room since he had been in the Officer’s Academy aboard the _Equity_. In fact, it was the only place he’d ever slept four to a room. Otherwise, he’d had his own rooms, his father’s quarters, or the higher-occupancy student quarters aboard the _Precision_.

Trying to raise his hand caused a startlingly exquisite pain to run the length of his arm, followed by a whirring noise and an uncomfortable stretch of muscle. The pain made him jump, but the sight of his right arm made him nearly shout in alarm. It had been replaced by a primitive cybernetic, the long droid-like digits frozen awkwardly near his face, slightly too close for comfort. He jerked his body back reflexively, not recognizing it as his own limb, and a second later the elbow joint jerked the hand away from his face at an unnatural angle, accompanied by a loud whine of aged, ill-kept tech.

The arm, palm, and fingers were composed of silver and black chrome pistons and rods, without particular care to how much they resembled human anatomy. He recognized it as a much older style that they’d stopped using on First Order personnel around the time he was in the Officer’s Academy. It was an Imperial model, and they’d updated personal tech like this almost as soon as they’d had steady and reliable funding in place. Prior to that, it had been all they had. Hux couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen one on a person. They were usually covered and disguised as much as possible.

He was struggling to organize his thoughts, the dissonance of this experience not adding up to a time and place in Hux’s mind. The tech and presence in the Officer-style room meant that this might be a different _when_ , but… his arm. He’d never sustained an injury even remotely like this. He clenched his right hand into a fist, and he felt a shooting pain, followed a few seconds later by the whine of the cybernetic clenching. The coarse gray sheet in his lap was visible through the thin metacarpals of the droid palm. He sighed. He vaguely recalled there was a delay on the old cybernetics that made physical therapy a necessity far beyond physical acclimation. Fantastic. He knew nothing about that.

Well. This was at least different. _Very_  different. He told himself it was a good thing, because his thoughts were already skipping to panic, fraying around the edges as he desperately tried to find context and meaning in this. An Imperial Star Destroyer. His arm.

He started with the arm, told himself to focus, to ground himself in the reality of it. He stared at the place where his bicep used to be, trying to match the injury to any memory or experience in his childhood. There was nothing. He’d certainly been in danger of losing his life more than once, but not by a debilitating injury. Hand-to-hand combat had never been his specialty. With the exception of Ren’s lightsaber, the last time he’d been in a situation where he’d had an opportunity to lose his arm he’d been very young. Eight or ten. They didn’t have cybernetic replacements back then. They’d had the resources to manufacture the Imperial tech when he’d been around eleven or twelve, though they hadn’t had resources to give cybernetics to children who would outgrow them. By the time most Trooper cadets reached the age where the old cybernetics could be fitted, they had better dexterity and mobility without.

The cybernetics also failed to interface with the nervous system properly, causing chronic pain. Many Troopers injured in the line of duty had opted out of the dated tech, the same that Hux had been fitted with.

Not only had he never come close to losing a limb, he couldn’t imagine wanting the dated tech installed. He jerked the cybernetic arm again, and winced at the pain that lanced through his arm. It felt as if the muscles were being wrenched from bones, that his skin was hot and every part of his arm was pulled tense. Except there was no arm. The uncanny feeling that his arm was still attached made the pain that much more unbearable. He wouldn’t be able to feign use of it or mask his reaction to moving it. He hoped it had happened recently, or that he could hold it immobile without raising suspicion.

The arm was complete, including a group of rods above the elbow where his right bicep used to be. The cybernetic extended all the way to Hux’s shoulder, and he craned his neck to see the join in his flesh the best he could. The wound was clean, with no scarring around it. It must have been done with some sort of plasma weapon. They'd had Imperial pikes that might be able to do this when Hux was younger. He’d never been closer than an observation room to one, though. A lightsaber could do it, but if this was the Officer’s Academy, he was too young to have met Ben Solo.

The wound at his shoulder twinged. He’d seen Ren’s lightsaber do its share of dismemberment, but Ren had never turned it on him as anything more than an empty threat. He wouldn’t have hurt Hux like this. It would have been a betrayal.

It wasn’t Ren. Ren wasn’t here. Hux would have to fetch him out of the Jedi School on Hab-118 this time. The idea settled him. There would be no search, no meetings, no tedious meetings on Hosnian Prime. It was easy, and his thoughts locked onto it as an anchor. He could get Ren whenever he wanted, no matter what it was that he'd woken to this time. None of the rest of it mattered if he could find Ren at a moment's notice and bring him back.

He ran his left fingers through his hair. It was loose and long, longer than he had worn it at the Officer’s Academy. That gave him pause. He rarely changed his hairstyle. He had begun to grow his hair out just before the Academy graduation, but it had only ever been this long during his first posting on Laymar.

Well. The _when_  was different, and the length of his hair wasn’t nearly as strange as his cybernetic arm. It was just… something didn’t feel right. All the strangeness was building, twisting inside Hux's gut, defying easy explanation or classification. The _when_. The fact that whatever was happening to him, whatever all this was, directly involved Ren.

So why would it start before they met?

Hux was still unclear of the nature or purpose of all this, if there was any at all. It was irrelevant, and there was nothing he could do by himself to solve the mystery. Each time it had happened, he'd been in that Ventu cave, and had... perhaps acted uncharitably, or expressed criticism of Ren. Did that make this a punishment? Would the same thing have happened to him if he'd said nothing?

If there was any intention at all, why had he woken up with the cybernetic? Certainly the ordeal of losing the arm would have been instructive. This didn’t make sense.

He shook his head, feeling the familiar buzzing dissonance low in his thoughts. _None_  of this made sense. It had been going on for far too long if something about it was meant to be logical. He pushed his fears down, suppressed the buzzing noise. He reminded himself of his resolve - Ren would be easy to retrieve, and none of the rest of it mattered, no matter how odd.

The thought of meeting Ben Solo again, of what Ben would say this time, made him smile slightly. Ben Solo would be far easier to recruit than the Senator.

The Senator. Right. He glanced at the door, not sure how much privacy he had, but allowed himself to close his eyes and put his left hand over his face. He felt it heat beneath his palm.

Out of the moment, perhaps after sleeping (if that’s what he did when this happened), he was nearly appalled by his reaction to Senator Ben Solo. Ren had been himself through and through, and it wasn’t as if it was difficult for Hux to understand that Ren wouldn’t want to see Snoke again. Especially if-

_He’d been threatening Ren, forcing his compliance, by threatening Hux._  That was… awful. It made Hux want to. Well. Ren was. He wasn’t going back to Snoke, and had said so. They still needed to know how to defeat him. Hux could have stayed and discussed it, or trusted himself to come up with a way to do that. But he’d reacted foolishly and left.

He scowled at himself and flexed his right hand. It hurt, and drove out more of the creeping dread and regret that chased his decision. Whatever he had done, the mistakes he'd made… it was earlier in time now, so he could fix all of it, do everything over again concerning himself and Ren and the decisions they made together. Perhaps there was a way to mitigate Snoke’s power earlier. Perhaps Hux was meant to find that, along with Ren.

_Ren_. Senator Ben Solo. The full impact of how he'd behaved hit him, and he felt himself grow hot all over. He was ashamed and disappointed with himself, bitterly so, about leaving Ren behind again. It wasn’t nearly the betrayal that it had been the first time (second time?) he’d woken up without Ren. But if he'd only been _patient_ , listened to Ren-

Well. That was. Rather than wallow in bed and regret it, he decided to get on with his day. Which was? Lecture with Sargent Takor, perhaps. Tedious. He’d sat through worse. He’d sat through those exact lectures before. Perhaps he had a thing or two to teach Sargent Takor now, too.

He swung his feet onto the floor and noted that he was wearing regulation sleepwear, the same dull grey sleeveless shirt and tiny shorts he’d had in the Academy, along with the same duranium ID tags. He grabbed the tags below his shirt, thinking to check them for his rank, then didn’t. The focusing crystal still wouldn’t be there, and he didn’t want to confront that yet.

Instead, he stood and searched his body for signs of how old he was, and could find none. He hadn’t changed a great deal between adulthood and middle age. Lifestyle changes and bad habits hadn’t altered his lean, thin build as he'd grown older. But he’d stopped noticing his height and weight once it ceased to matter, after the years of being a too-small Cadet.

He did have a scar from where a rogue recruit had stabbed him with a concealed dagger while disembarking a transport aboard the _Absolution_. That had happened years ago, but the weapon had been crude, and the scar had stayed puckered and red. Curious, he pulled his shirt up, examining the spot on his left side, below his ribcage. That wasn’t there. It made sense if this was the Academy, though given his lack of arm, it didn’t mean much. Had it not happened yet? Or had the time passed without incident in this life?

He examined his unmarred flesh with a fair bit of detachment, but it was dizzying to wake up without an arm, not knowing how old he was, or where he was, and finding his actual scars missing. He closed his eyes again and felt something threaten to crack inside his chest, or his mind. This time, he hadn’t even woken up in a body he’d recognized. Every part of him wanted to lay back down, go to sleep and wake up to Ren’s cold feet pressing into his legs, to have the simple pleasure of rolling over and fighting about something so small.

He clenched his cybernetic hand again, letting the pain build and build until it erased all the other thoughts in his head. He relented only when he thought he might pass out. Ren wasn’t here. If he wanted Ren, and wanted to kick Ren awake, he’d have to stop feeling sorry for himself and go get him. He’d have Ren use his family’s money to buy him a better Republican cybernetic. You could probably get them at public clinics there. Maybe they were free to all citizens, and better than organic arms.

Though the determination to find Ren wasn’t nearly the comfort it should have been, he used his resolve to force himself to begin his routine. He opened his (unlocked, he noticed, he’d never actually had one that didn’t lock before) Academy footlocker and withdrew his uniform.

He scowled at it. It was not a Cadet uniform, but a Major’s teal uniform. Due to circumstances and privilege, he'd never shared a room with others as a Major. So was this an early promotion? A later one? Was Ren here after all? The thought cheered him, even as he told himself it was impossible. If Ren were here, they would be together. Ren would be in the top bunk, snoring obnoxiously at the very least.

He glanced up to the empty top bunk before he could stop himself, feeling foolish. Of course he wasn’t there. He huffed and turned back to the footlocker, giving himself a stern order to stop brooding. Shower first, and then he’d untangle the nightmare of his present circumstances.

He grabbed his pressed uniform and meager toiletries and made his way to the communal ‘fresher allotted to his set of multiple occupancy suites. It was early for the shift, so none of the other Cadets were awake, and he took his time. He thought about checking the other rooms and verifying the identities of the other Cadets, but he didn’t want to be caught creeping around the suites. Most Officers were light sleepers, and for good reason.

The ‘fresher was a sonic model, which Hux had forgotten. Of course the Academy hadn’t provided bathing water for students. But the loss of his water privileges made him suddenly, irrationally angry. It was one of things he’d valued most when he’d first earned it, and he still often relished it.

He was also missing his usual toiletries acutely. He liked particular products, and the general kit was disgusting in comparison - especially this one, which contained the thin, unsatisfying economy items he’d remembered from his teen years. He used it begrudgingly, and the sonic-compatible products drug against his skin and scalp, gritty and unsatisfying.

The cybernetic was a problem. He kept jerking it involuntarily, and the pain was sharp and surprising enough to elicit a surprised intake of breath every time. He eventually held it cradled against his chest, willing himself not to twitch a finger and awkwardly finishing the job of washing his hair and body with his left hand. The sonic stung the join between skin and metal, making his nerves alight in agony and causing him to begrudgingly angle the right side of his body away from the sonic.

Dressing was also an awkward, painful business. He was unnerved by the sensation of pulling on his left glove with his teeth. Pulling the right glove over the cybernetic was also uncanny - he couldn’t feel it, and it somehow looked like a natural hand while being wrong, a completely different size from his left. He ordered himself not to think about it. It was not something he could change.

He did his hair with his left hand as well, studying his face in the mirror. His expression and appearance looked… older than he had been as a Major. Which was odd. Perhaps he had changed less than he thought over the years. Ren occasionally tried to flatter him by saying he looked younger than he was, but that was only when he wanted something.

Properly attired, he went to the lounge area shared by the four Officer berths and brewed a cup of tea. None of the other two dozen or so Officers in the shared suites had yet risen, even to go to the ‘fresher. He studied the steam in his teacup idly, allowing his thoughts to drift and curdle again.

What would it be like to meet Ren once again? The Senator had been him, just as that other Ren had been. Would it be the same this time? Or would this be more authentically Ben Solo, like when they had first met?

_Stars_. He still couldn't believe that Ben had crept up on him that first time. Nor the rest of it, really. That kiss, the first time he’d taken Ben to bed, the first time he’d seen the lightsaber in person. He didn’t often allow himself to linger on that time. It had ended so poorly, and Ben’s rejection had never stopped hurting.

He raised his cup and swallowed, letting the bland tea burn the inside of his mouth and slide down his throat. Ben’s rejection hadn’t been unlike the Senator’s. If it was true that Hux should have… _not_  run away in response to Ren’s refusal to be tortured by Snoke, then perhaps he could think more charitably of Ben Solo. They had both been overwhelmed. Hux certainly was. And it was also true that Ren had always… _felt_  more strongly than Hux about everything.

He sighed, loosening his shoulders, closing his eyes briefly, inhaling the scent of the tea. He smirked, thinking of the look on Ben’s face when he’d first tried to suck Hux’s cock. For all the things that had changed over the years, Ren’s horrible cock-sucking, and his look of betrayal and determination as he gagged every time, had remained the same.

His eyes flew open as he thought about Ben Solo.

Things would be different if this was earlier in time, because he just… _couldn’t_.

He sipped his tea, outwardly calm, but he suddenly panicked. He rejected the possibility. He sat his empty cup on the countertop and, hand shaking, withdrew his datapad. Abruptly, despite all the evidence to the contrary, he decided he was wrong about the year.

He didn’t expect that to be true, not really, but it was.

_because their lives were bound, and it wasn’t right any other way_

It was thirty-five ABY.

He was thirty-five years old.

He was a Major, sleeping in a communal berth, at the age of thirty-five.

_but the other thing wasn’t true, and that was good, because_ what _-_

Even as he had to sit down in the wake of near-overwhelming relief, the implications of his current lifestyle began to sink in as he began to try and pull files on the datapad. His holonet access was severely restricted. Frustrated, he defaulted to his old Academy workarounds - Hux wasn’t much of a slicer, but every student had known how to exploit the old holonet system. To his surprise, the exploits worked, and the screen began scrolling with possibilities.

He frowned. Those exploits had stopped working even as he made his way through the Academy. They’d updated their data security as a priority, even before he met Ren. This wasn’t right either, just as much as any of the rest of it.

He pulled up his own personnel file first, hoping to orient himself to… whatever this was. This strange, technologically backwards First Order where he was still only a Major.

His history was the same, up to a point. He had been stationed on Laymar after graduation, and promoted to Captain due to his training expertise, then Major after he’d asphyxiated Major Kantra.

After that, everything else was strange. The program on Laymar had allegedly lasted seven years, and Hux had been stationed there the whole time. Hux frowned, the discordant ringing through his thoughts beginning again. He had been able to do little in that remote place, even in the year he’d been there. It had been too far away. He would never have submitted to seven years of it.

Afterwards, he’d moved to his current, apparently very stagnant posting on the… _Repletion_? Hux glanced around the dingy, overly-lit room with its hard duraluminum benches and the small square holoset mounted on the wall.

One old Imperial hulk looked much the same as the next, but… the _Repletion_? Surely not. He glanced down at his pad, then back up. The _Repletion_  was an aging hulk, one of the Imperial vessels that had been part of the original exile fleet. It hadn’t been fit for active service in nearly fifteen years. Hux only ordered it maintained as a kind of purgatory for those that merited a certain kind of perverse punishment. Even still, the upkeep of the life support was too expensive to make it tenable any longer, and they were on the cusp of scrapping it. It was nearly forty-five years old.

Abruptly, his lungs clenched, and he thought about those bad exile years aboard the _Precision_. All the ships but the _Eclipse_  and _Absolution_  had been derelict. He’d kept the _Repletion_  in service so long afterwards as a reminder, to himself and others.

He filled his lungs, closed his eyes, listened. Calmed himself. It was chilly, not freezing. There was oxygen. There was heat. The systems were humming in the walls, loud but working. There was even tea, however terrible. He was fine.

Making more tea would help, and he stood and did so, reading through the datapad as he prepared it, not quite believing what he read.

Not only was the _Repletion_  still an active vessel in the fleet, with a current Trooper allotment, it was the central headquarters for the Army. Apparently Hux was still involved with training, was due to report for his shift in twenty minutes.

Where was the _Absolution_? Or the _Finalizer_ , for that matter? He searched, but there was no record of either ship. Had the _Absolution_ been destroyed in exile? Had they never begun the manufacturing of the _Resurgent_ class ships? He sipped his tea, which was still tasteless, but burned his tongue and the inside of his mouth. He thought about that as he searched his file further.

And grew abruptly furious. It wasn’t right. It _couldn’t_  be.

Hux had no merits, no commendations for his work in the training program. Nothing at all, except a note about an accident a year ago having to do with his arm.

He scowled, flexing his cybernetic fingers and flinching against the pain. A year ago. They had better cybernetics than this in 34 ABY. They’d had better cybernetics than this in both the other versions of the First Order he’d seen. This was disgraceful, neglectful. They’d moved past this kind of poverty decades ago.

And… accident? His file didn’t have many details, just that it had occurred during Trooper training.

He glanced around the empty room, his gaze settling on the door.

Those weren’t ever accidents. Someone wanted him dead. But who? He needed more information. How well-connected was he now, as a Major? Did he have the same network?

As he stared at the empty doorway, another Officer entered the room, a Sergeant that Hux didn’t recognize. She yawned, then began messily making caf. Hux sneered as the caf slopped over the rim of her cup and the foul smell of the drink assaulted him. She sneered back.

“Good morning to you, too.”

“Don’t mind him,” another voice said as he entered the room. It was Lieutenant Tenglay. Hux had executed him ten years ago for gross incompetence. His cap was in his hand, and Hux noted clinically that the man had gone bald in middle age. As Hux stared at his head, the man paused, donning his cap and glaring at Hux. “He’s angry about his janitorial shift this afternoon.”

Satisfied with the insult, Tenglay stepped forward and promptly tripped over a loose tile in the floor.

Hux turned back to the caf-stained countertop, wordlessly dumping his battered tin cup into the sink and leaving before more of the Officers entered. He didn’t know where he stood, and he feared he would not be able to hold his tongue if he was forced to watch the incompetent ghosts of the First Order pratfall for him.

Most of all, he didn’t want or need to know who he shared quarters with. He apparently owned nothing in this version of the First Order, not even bathing products that were to his liking.

He’d be leaving to find Ren soon enough.

 

 

* * *

 

  
Hux was unsurprised to find the old nutrient pastes in the central mess when he came to claim a morning ration. Apparently, not only were they still serving the same old flavorless paste, they’d also done away with plates and utensils. He was given a tube. Baffled, he watched others put it in their mouth, bite off the end, and suck the paste out of it, consuming the tube when they were finished.

The tube and paste tasted the same - flavorless, chalky. The tube had an unpleasant crunchy texture that Hux nearly gagged on.

Though the pastes were cost-effective, there was psychological detriment to using them, so they’d long ago switched to serving everyone real food. Not surprisingly, the personnel loss rate plummeted afterwards. The new recruit programming worked much better when new Order personnel looked forward to mealtimes, rather than dreading it as an unpleasant task. He could not fathom why this version of the Order had developed nutrient paste to make it cheaper and more unappealing. Presumably, the techs who made it and the Officers who ordered it had to eat it, too.

Hux’s stomach growled as he threw his stick in the nearest disposal chute. He wasn’t hungry enough to endure it just yet, though he knew he would be beyond caring soon. He sat at a section of table by himself and watched the other Officers suck their ration stick with one hand while accessing their datapads with the other. The harsh overhead light reflected off the dented, worn-out tables and benches that stretched the length of the room, accommodating all on-duty Officers for primary shift. Here, the number of Officers was significantly less than the thousand bodies that typically made up primary shift. They sat in their gray, teal, and black uniforms, largely not speaking to each other. It was eerily silent, the repulsive crunching of the sticks, rustling of fabric, and squeaking of boots echoing around the hall. Some piece of tech knocked loudly in a nearby wall, and the lighting dimmed for a moment before he heard something spin up and the room brightened once again. No one looked up.

Hux remembered the times when conversation in the mess had been forbidden, back when he was a much younger cadet. Rather than make the cadets more subdued and orderly, it had bred resentment and caused more acting out. The regulations against fraternization had been relaxed even before he’d moved from the _Precision_  to the Equity.

He’d never seen the full-size mess on board one of the old Imperial Star Destroyers, mostly too young for the experience. When he’d returned to the _Absolution,_  after Laymar and before the completion of the _Finalizer_ , he’d had his own private quarters in the Hux suite. Being his father’s son was often unpleasant, but private quarters as a Major was a privilege he was more than happy to indulge in, even while it rankled not to have earned it.

On a whim, he attempted to run the statistics for personnel failure rate on his datapad, hoping to see evidence of the dismal food and facilities, and frowned when he was locked out again. He glanced around. He could probably go deeper and get access to the data, but was it worth the time?

His attention went to an elderly captain who had begun choking on the paste. No one around him seemed to notice. The lights dimmed, then brightened again. Hux decided the personnel failure rate was very high.

Bored, he brought up his personal schedule and noticed he needed to report to Training Hall C in twenty minutes. He left, glad to have a reason to get away from the monotonous chewing sound in the mess hall.

Training Hall C was exactly what he expected, identical to the facilities on board the _Precision_. It was full of outdated Imperial-era equipment that functioned poorly. The holosims flickered in and out of usability, requiring the Troopers to use more imagination than Hux would have liked - results were better when they were fully immersed. There were constant faults in the equipment, and everything from the controls to the lights and speaker circuits had shorts, causing a lot of headaches and unnecessary repetition.

From the control booth, Hux made a dissatisfied sound aloud when he saw the unit of forty Stormtroopers gathering loosely in the main chamber, awaiting his signal to start. The training procedures had long ago been modified to break the Troopers into smaller groups that made instruction more effective and specialized to each Trooper. Large group exercises were reserved for specialist units and on-site drills, prepping troops as part of a large army.

When Hux gave no signal, eventually the Troopers formed small groups of twos and threes, presumably conversing through their helmet circuits. He glanced at the equipment and wondered absently if he’d have a tech staff to run the sims and monitor the chatter for him. He punched up the schedule. Of course not. That would be too much to expect for a group of forty. He tried entering the codes to bring up the chatter himself, and had to try three times before he remembered how to do it on the older equipment. When the code finally went through, the room filled with a burst of static, then the distinct sound of a speaker popping and dying.

Fed up, he brought the list of start codes up on the console and hit the screen hard enough with his prosthetic to hear it crack. Pain shot up his arm, and he grimaced in the privacy of the booth. It was satisfying, but part of him recoiled from the very Ren-like reaction. He glanced up at his reflection in the transparisteel panel of the observation booth, half-expecting to see Ren looming behind him, prepared with a snide comment about his outburst.

He wasn’t there, because Hux had intentionally left him last time. Right. He needed to focus on the task at hand. He needed to find out where the Order stood, then go recover Ren and come up with a plan.

He watched through the transparisteel as the Troopers reacted to the start codes by instantly snapping into ordered ranks, still and uniform, their armor immaculate despite the disrepair of the rest of the ship. Hux considered them. His left hand wandered over the console, over the speaking button, then decided that his voice would be more reliable than the equipment.

He rose and moved toward the closed door between the booth and the main space. He twitched his right arm toward the door controls, winced at the pain, then tucked it carefully behind his back, making his hand into a fist and composing himself before using his left to operate the controls. He walked out, both hands behind his back, and stood at attention at the front of the unit.

Hux had researched their files as he’d waited to begin. He’d hoped to match the Trooper numbers and faces to those he remembered. At one time, he’d known every number, name, face, strength, and weakness to every Trooper he’d trained, though his time commitments had eventually made that impossible. That, and doing it still made him think of Cardinal after all these years, who had always been better at it than Hux.

None of these Troopers were anyone he remembered. Their files indicated that many of them had been with the Order for some time, though even the oldest were new to Hux. Once he had taken the time to stare into the black eyeshield of each helmet individually, his gaze fixed on the Trooper front and center in the formation.

“TN-1334, what are you expecting to get out of today’s training session?” This was a real question. Hux’s schedule, and the system files, simply indicated that this was “training.” The lack of detail infuriated him, and he had no idea what he was supposed to do with these Troopers.

Thankfully, the Troopers could tell him. TN-1334 saluted. “Sir. Defensive training, hand to hand. Physical.”

Hux kept his face impassive, though that he was leading physical training was… interesting. His specialty had always been tactical. “Are you expecting to learn anything new today?”

The Trooper hesitated. “No, sir. This was a scheduled rote training session. You are the rote physical instructor, sir.”

Hux clenched his jaw imperceptibly. Rote instructors led Troopers through exercises they knew like the back of their hand. They were the lowest rank of Officer, or ones who had recently been disgraced. Hux used the position for many of the older Imperial remnants. His current status as a rote physical instructor may have been some sort of slight over losing his arm, as these instructors were required to do a live demonstration before the exercises. He could not do demonstrations, or at least not today. Perhaps some alternate version of himself could move his right arm without pain.

“Back in line.” Hux inclined his head slightly at TN-1334 before scanning the group again. “TN-1330 through TN-6600, on offense. Trooper call signs UN on defense.”

He stepped back, watching the group with interest. He’d purposely omitted the name of a specific exercise to see how the Troopers would react. The room split into two groups, and Hux watched as they went through the very basic choreographed blocking and punching exercises, similar to what they drilled cadets in for reflex training.

He grunted under his breath, wishing he had retreated into the observation booth to sound the obnoxious cease alarm the Training Halls were fitted with. He used his voice instead.

“Halt.” He let it crack out over the room, an order. Obediently, all the Troopers stopped in the middle of the same punch-block maneuver, stepping apart and facing him, twenty groups of two in identical armor, in identical expressionless helmets.

He held back his annoyance. The exercises they had done were warm-ups, not the beginning of a rote training session. He was angry, but there was no sense in taking it out on the Troopers. It wasn’t their fault that this was a mockery of his own program. Seeing it like this still hurt him, made him angry in an indescribable way, but he needed to see what he could do with it. The Trooper training program was his greatest and best tool, and any form of it would be useful.

“TN-4582, UN-9970, step forward.” They did, saluting, and Hux inclined his head again. “I want you to spar in front of the unit. Freestyle. The first to be knocked unconscious or pinned will be the winner. No other restrictions.”

The pair hesitated. “Freestyle, sir?”

Hux once again held in his frustration. He shouldn’t have to repeat himself. “What part of the order do you not understand, UN-9970?” He used a soft tone that would indicate a dangerous dressing-down to any incompetent Officer. But Hux wasn’t in the habit of dressing down Stormtroopers, so the inquiry was sincere.

The Trooper paused, expressionless helmet regarding Hux. Hux hated it when they wore their helmets in training. It was another thing they didn’t do anymore, so the Officers could read facial expressions.

“Freestyle, sir. I don’t understand what you want us to do.”

Hux clenched his jaw. Freestyle fights like this were also common in basic cadet programs. It helped Officers and Troopers alike identify weaknesses and correct them. For a full-fledged numbered Trooper not to understand it was absurd.

“I want you two to fight,” he said, more loudly and sharply than he'd intended. “Fight each other until one of you loses under the conditions I’ve just specified. Do you understand?” When the Troopers stared at him again, Hux added “Take off those helmets. Do it bareheaded.”

They paused far longer at that, but eventually their hands came up to obey. As expected, both of them looked confused and troubled. Hux was quickly loosing patience.

“You do not understand. Tell me what you need to know to proceed.”

They glanced at each other, and this time TN-4582 spoke up. “What moves would you like us to use?”

“I would like you to use _your imagination_ , and your instincts,” Hux said, leaning forward slightly, losing his composure despite repeated warnings to himself. It didn’t do to speak down to Troopers like this. He’d demoted Officers for it before. “I want you to use attacks that you think your opponent would be vulnerable to. _Fight each other_. Do I make myself clear?”

They both squinted at him, shifting slightly with their helmets under their arms, then looked at each other. “No, sir. You want us to fight each other? An actual fight?”

Hux was nearly in tears. It shouldn’t be this hard to get soldiers to brawl. Apparently it wasn’t done here. “ _Yes_. I want you two to fight, with your fists and feet and elbows and any other part of your body that you think would be effective. Bite each other, pull each other’s armor off. I want one of you to pin the other, or knock the other out.” He bit back a patronizing comment about additional clarification, clenching his jaw again and watching the two of them stare back another moment. He reflexively dug his fingers into his palm, then nearly winced as the pain shot up his right arm.

Slowly, the two turned to look at each other, then set their helmets down on the ground and squared off. Predictably, the fight was pathetic. Hux watched as they began going through the same coordinated blocking exercises from earlier, then stopped them.

“UN-9970, _punch him in the face_ ,” he called out, not disguising the impatience in his voice. The two hesitated, then TN-4582 dropped his guard to let her land a blow against his face. They stood in shock for a moment, and Hux nearly groaned in frustration.

“TN-4582, return the favor, try to throw her to the ground.” When the two of them positioned each other so that UN-9970 could be easily thrown, Hux called out “UN-9970, _do not let him do that to you_.”

They looked uncertain, but that instruction seemed to push them into a more sincere fight. It began slowly, but they warm to the idea as they sparred. They circled each other, grasping each other’s shoulders at arm’s length, until UN-9970 swept a leg out, knocking TN-4582 off his feet. He lay on the ground a moment, stunned, and Hux called out “Pin him, UN-9970.” When she crouched to comply, he called again, “TN-4582, _do not let her_.”

It was worse than leading the youngest child recruits through a fight. He wondered, suddenly, if they had been conditioned not to fight each other. They had toyed with the idea early on, as brawling was sometimes a problem with new recruits, but had ultimately decided against it. Conditioning soldiers _not to fight_  was poor logic.

For this reason.

The only way they could be this clueless about it is if the instruction had been in the conditioning routines for years. Even recruits from the most peaceful cultures understood the basics of a fistfight. This was... unique.

Hux watched, calling out frustratingly basic advice, as if the two Troopers had never witnessed a fight before. Eventually, UN-9970 pinned TN-4582 as earnestly as Hux could hope for. He had the two of them step aside, calling out two more Troopers to take their place.

This went on, each fight taking far longer than it should, though the pairs got progressively better after each round. Two hours in, Hux was shouting orders in the fourth fight, which was much faster and more lively than the other three, when the attention siren rang out.

Immediately, all the Troopers froze, identical looks of horror on every face. As one, they grabbed their helmets in a panic and scrambled to fasten them as they fell into ranks. Some seemed torn between the need to grab their helmets and fall in as fast as possible, which led to several fumbling with, then abandoning their helmets. Hux watched them, amused, allowing himself a moment to enjoy their panic before turning toward the opaque one-way transparisteel panel that led into the observation booth. He stared, trying to decide if there was some way he was supposed to react to the alarm. Typically, the instructor was not interrupted in the middle of training.

Hux, angry, decided that this was still true. He assumed a straight-backed posture, shooting a withering glare through the transparisteel panel. After several excruciating moments of silence, the door hissed open and Captain Cardinal entered. He was wearing his usual red version of the Trooper armor, shined and flawless from helmet to boot, along with the ridiculous Captain’s cape.

Hux’s blood ran cold, then hot, rage bubbling up the back of his throat at the sight of Cardinal, whose betrayal had been so _personal_.

But. He’d been here, in these other versions of the Order, twice now. Was this a more loyal Cardinal? Had it truly been Phasma who he’d had an issue with? Or the anomalous Resistance prisoner? Perhaps without them, Cardinal was once again the paragon of the Stormtrooper program, loyal and powerful and skilled, eager to pass their message and lifestyle on to the rest of the galaxy.

Hux frowned at him. Perhaps. Perhaps not. Maybe Phasma hadn’t got around to killing him yet. He was still interrupting in most obnoxious way possible.

“Captain,” Hux addressed coldly. “Can I help you? We were just in the middle of training exercises.”

“Troopers, helmets on!” Cardinal snapped, and Hux glanced back over his shoulder, watching the helmetless Troopers scramble and awkwardly don their helmets, falling back into faceless ranks a moment later.

“ _Captain Cardinal_ ,” Hux tried again. “We are in the _middle of something_. What cannot wait?”

“ _Major_.” Hux could tell from his tone through the vocoder that Cardinal was in rare form. He resisted rolling his eyes. “You appear to be accumulating a number of infractions today.”

“Infractions,” Hux repeated flatly. “Let’s hear them.”

Cardinal tilted his helmet slightly to the side. “You did not salute me when I entered,” he replied, speaking slowly and ponderously.

Hux clenched his jaw to keep his reaction from showing on his face. He counted to three to collect himself, then considered a reply. This was someone that Hux had ordered to polish his boots when they were both boys. The loathing they held for each other was mutual, and Hux valued every iota of influence he held over Cardinal. He would rather end his life with his own blaster than salute Cardinal, but his desire to humiliate Cardinal in the moment warred with the instinct not to contradict the Captain in front of other Troopers. The man did have his place, and he was excellent at Trooper training.

But Cardinal had been the one to walk in and interrupt training to be ridiculous. He never would have done that before, not the Cardinal Hux knew. Hux decided that he deserved a lesson now.

“I was unaware of the protocol concerning the rank difference between Majors and Trooper Captains.”

It wasn’t ridiculous simply because Hux, as a Major, would still have outranked Cardinal even if they had both been Officers. But Cardinal was a _Trooper_. A properly assertive Staff Sergeant could give him orders, though Cardinal generally did not take them from low-ranking Officers. He had, however, always been required to take them from Hux, even before Hux held rank.

There was some shuffling and popping static from the Troopers behind him. He glanced over without moving his head. Something about his statement had upset them. Perhaps they were more loyal to this version of Cardinal than Hux realized. He likely hadn’t re-tooled the conditioning and loyalty holos to feature himself heavily in this version of the First Order.

“You will salute me, _Armitage_ , in my own program.” Cardinal’s posture changed as he dropped his gauntleted hands low, near his service weapon, and spread his legs in a fighting stance.

Hux barely noticed, because his first name rang through his ears. Astounding. Unbelievable. He hadn’t just…

“Repeat that,” Hux spat.

“Repeat _what_ , Armitage? The order to salute the head of training in the Training Hall? I don’t really need to.”

Hux’s own hands twitched, the impulse to go for his own weapon and finish Phasma’s task overwhelming. But he drew with his right hand, and the reflexive movement made pain from his cybernetic jangle through his system. He clenched his jaw harder, his muscles aching.

He couldn’t do this. Not another moment longer in front of the Troopers. He would kill Cardinal with his bare hands in front of forty witnesses, and that simply wouldn’t do.

“Follow me,” he bit out, an order. He strode past Cardinal and out the door, attempting to lead him to the observation room.

“Halt.” Cardinal gave his own order, pivoting on the spot, and Hux froze, astounded. He turned slowly back around to face him, allowing his expression to betray him, fully unable to control it. Cardinal hadn’t tried to give him an order since they had both been children and Cardinal had been able to beat a younger, smaller Hux into the mat.

The shock of the order rooted him to the spot, despite his natural repulsion to do anything Cardinal wanted. Misinterpreting his stillness as compliance, Cardinal continued.

“I was not done listing your infractions. Certainly you didn’t think you could modify the physical rote program without my notice?”

“ _Modify_  it?” Hux asked, incredulously. “I was having them _spar_. It’s hardly a modification to physical-”

“Why are you going against the conditioning?”

Cardinal cut him off, and Hux was even more furious. His head was throbbing, and his hands had lowered to his sides, despite the pain in his right arm, now an almost-unnoticeable low ache. He badly wanted to use the prosthetic to tear the helmet off Cardinal’s head, reveal his stupid, vacant face, and watch his reaction as Hux spaced him out an airlock. He resolved to do just that before he left to get Ren. The thought consoled him, settled his rage enough to speak.

“It occurred to me that it might be… _unwise_  to have soldiers that were unable to spar. I was leading them through exercises as a possible avenue of exploration.”

“I was not aware that the rote physical instructor was open, or authorized, to do such exploration.”

Hux allowed a scowl. Cardinal had been the Trooper head of the training program since Hux’s final year of the Officer’s Academy. He well knew that Cardinal was resistant to new ideas, and told himself it was best to side-step this now, no matter how idiotic it seemed.

But there had never been any point in Hux’s life when he had not been authorized to explore training techniques with Troopers.

“I do not need your permission,” he said simply. “I can do as I please.”

Cardinal shifted. “Your flagrant insubordination is astounding, but I’m sorry to say, not out of character. I am only shocked that you’ve opened yourself up to the opportunity to allow me to discipline you.”

Hux’s hand twitched toward his blaster again. If Cardinal dared to order any sort of punishment, Hux would shoot him where he stood, right in front of this unit.

As if to defy him further, Cardinal called out an order to the room of soldiers. “Troopers. Continue with rote physical exercises. From the beginning.”

Hux’s stomach tightened in fury as the forty Troopers paired off and began going through the coordinated rote exercises again. He turned to Cardinal, seconds away from ill-considered violence.

“What are you-”

“Follow me,” Cardinal ordered crisply, turning on his heel and exiting the chamber. Hux watched him go, the harsh, flickering overhead lights reflecting off the shiny plasteel red of Cardinal’s armor.

Hux sneered at his back, then turned to the room and considered his options. He could spite Cardinal by staying and ordering the sparring exercises. Following Cardinal meant taking an order from him, which Hux did not want to do. But the odds that they would wind up in a room alone together were high, and Hux dearly wanted that to happen. The consequences of killing Cardinal mattered little to him. As general, it would be nothing, and he could hide it efficiently. He could not do it without consideration after only a day on this hulk of the _Repletion_. But he could probably cover his tracks long enough to find out what he needed about Ren’s whereabouts and gain permission for a leave.

So he followed Cardinal down the hallway. They walked silently to the main transport, and it creaked and moaned to life, taking the old tracks to the Commander conference rooms. Hux spent the entire ride in a sulk, glaring at Cardinal with undisguised loathing. He didn’t need to hide his intentions from the other man. They were not children, and Hux was not afraid of him.

Cardinal led him into an empty conference room, then spun to face him. Hux opened his mouth to eviscerate Cardinal, but Cardinal held up a hand. Before Hux could think of the appropriate cutting insult, Cardinal spoke.

“The General wishes to speak to you. Your reprimand will come from him.”

Hux closed his mouth as Cardinal brushed past him, shoulder-checking him hard enough to make Hux stumble. He barely noticed, his gaze unfocused and directed at the opposite wall.

The General.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. It hadn’t occurred to him to wonder who was in charge of the army, in this version of the First Order where he was not. Obviously it was someone who favored Cardinal as a little lap dog. It was…

No.

It had to be one of the old Imperials. Nagar, maybe. Perhaps Hux hadn’t executed him when he had the chance, or perhaps the chance had never arrived. Juvol. She was ruthless, and hated Hux, another possibility. There was also Fall, who Hux had let live due to his skills with new recruits. He had a soft touch, sure, but his attitude to Command had-

The door opened behind him. He did not turn around. He knew who it was.

“Armitage,” a low, gravelly voice spoke behind him, no particular indicator in his tone. The voice was unmistakable. Hux closed his eyes, then gave himself a moment before he turned to faced him.

“General.”

His voice was steady, and his face gave nothing away. He clenched his hands behind his back, concealed the pain this caused him, and straightened his shoulders fractionally as he took in Brendol Hux’s appearance.

He was more than ten years older than he should have been. Grayer, fatter, the red almost entirely gone from his beard and hair, which was coarser and somewhat unkempt. His eyes were the same, hard and blue and identical to Hux’s own in a face that had gone soft with age. His posture and expression mirrored Hux’s. They were so alike in so many ways. Both of them hated it.

“I thought I made it clear that these little insubordinations of yours needed to stop. You are thirty-five years old, Armitage, and still acting like a rebellious teen.”

Brendol’s gaze flicked down to Hux’s right shoulder, and Hux suppressed a shiver again when he realized just how he’d lost his arm in the training exercises. As expected, it hadn’t been an accident. Bile rose in the back of his throat. It was something Hux would have done, had done. He wouldn’t have done it to his father, though.

Well. Until he’d killed him, he supposed. That had looked like an accident.

“Sir.” The respect came unbidden, unwanted, even after all these years. “I was trying-”

“No.” Brendol’s voice was loud, but still lacked inflection. “What you were doing was disobeying direct orders. Was it not clear to you that all training exercises need to be approved by Cardinal? What will it take to make you understand?”

Hux suppressed his contempt. It was never wise to display it in front of Brendol. “Certainly sparring doesn’t-”

Brendol took a step forward and backhanded him. It was a shock, though Brendol had been in the habit of doing it frequently. Hux had forgotten. He’d also stopped taking it meekly after he’d left school. He and Brendol had an understanding about it. It wasn’t the physical pain of it that stung, but the humiliation. Pain was fine, but the insult to his dignity would not stand.

Hux snarled, stepping forward and raising his own hand, then winced and sucked in a whistling inhale of breath when the pain of his prosthetic shot through his arm and shoulder. He gripped his wrist, freezing and looking away from his father.

“Still getting used to the prosthetic, Armitage? Disappointing. It’s been almost a year. I thought you’d be back up to fighting strength by now. But adaptation has always been a weakness of yours."

_Adaptation_. A weakness. As if he hadn't-

No. This was exactly what Brendol wanted. He was trying to provoke Hux to lose his temper. Hux glared at him again, feeling the sting of the old insults. He hadn’t had to put up with this in some time, and found he couldn’t control his knee-jerk reactions. “That’s a fucking lie-”

Brendol slapped him again, and this time Hux grabbed his wrist with his right hand, twisting it and tripping his father, knocking him to the floor on his back. Brendol’s breath escaped him in a gasping wheeze. His face was mottled red and furious.

“You insubordinate little shit, I’ll have you court-martialed-”

Hux’s boot came down on his father’s windpipe. He felt nothing as he leaned over, putting his face closer to his father's. “You’ll do no such thing. Is there any reason to involve the army in our… personal problems? Father? You wouldn’t be able to conscience the humiliation.”

The color drained from Brendol’s face, though his expression remained dark. He brushed Hux’s boot off his throat, and Hux let him, watching his father struggle to his feet.

“You don't have the wits to know when you've been beaten,” Brendol ground out. “You think I won’t take the other arm, too? That you’re entitled to _anything_?”

Hux snorted, raising his arms to cross them, pausing and moving them carefully back to his sides when the right ached with a sharp pain. He didn’t give his father the pleasure of showing that it affected him.

“Since when have you given me anything? I’m entitled to nothing but what I earn. And it’s far more than you ever had.”

It should have felt good saying it, and it was true. Hux had taken the order from Brendol and made it so much greater. Hux was the perfect architect for it. Standing on this derelict Star Destroyer in this diminished version didn’t make it any less true. It proved Hux’s point, that Brendol couldn’t do what he could.

But saying it felt empty. He was just repeating words to a ghost. Hux had come to terms with the necessity of his murder years ago, and had stopped seeking his approval long before that. Seeing him now felt unreal, the most outrageous thread in these lives that the forces of Ventu wanted to show him.

He thinned his lips, suppressing the absurd urge to laugh. Of all the unbelievable things that had happened to him lately, he _didn’t believe in his father_.

And yet here he was, still able to incite the same kind of petty fury that turned Hux’s stomach. Brendol stood and smoothed his uniform as if they’d merely brushed together, refusing to acknowledge that Hux had physically bested him. His hand gestures drew attention to his rank insignia, and Hux did not hide his contempt at seeing the General’s rank on his father’s sleeve again. That was _his_  uniform. His gaze went back to Brendol’s, and Hux saw a moment of confusion in it. He smirked. Let him figure that one out.

Brendol’s confusion was quickly gone, replaced by that blank expression that both of them had perfected. “Your Commanding Officer will be here to retrieve you shortly. She’ll decide the punishment for your repeated, egregious insubordination.”

“To Cardinal.” Hux’s lip curled. He opened his mouth to ask who his Commanding Officer was, then closed it again. It wasn’t the right question. Brendol would take it as a weakness. Hux already saw suspicion on his face before Hux could clear his expression again.

“This petty, childish rivalry needs to stop. I thought the matter closed when you agreed to take his orders.”

“I would never agree to that,” Hux answered automatically. There was no version of himself that would have acceded to that, so he had to assume Brendol was lying.

“ _Armitage_ ,” his father’s voice went low and dangerous, and he took a step forward. “This is why you no longer have input in the Trooper program. Because you can’t take orders worth a damn. When you learn to fall in line and act as a member of the team, then we can talk about your ideas.”

“My _ideas_ ,” Hux said flatly, unable to stop himself, knowing it was wrong, not caring. “You mean like having an army that's had the fight conditioned out of them?”

“We’ve had this conversation,” Brendol said, stepping forward. Now they were in each other’s space. Hux's pulse beat in his ear, and he had to keep reminding himself. Dead, dead, dead, he'd killed Brendol, none of this mattered. “And I continue to tell you, the army will do as I say. You're too thick for the lesson.”

Hux couldn’t do this. Not now. He couldn’t bear another second of this conversation. Apparently his father had become more obstinate, petty, and power-hungry the longer he lived. Hux hated seeing him like this. Both because he hated his father, and because he had to begrudgingly admit that Brendol had been a better man all those years ago.

His eyes flicked back down to Brendol’s rank stripes, and another question came out unbidden. He’d always been poor about checking his mouth around his father, and something inside him twisted. He hated it. It was bred from familiarity, and went unchecked because there were so few he was familiar with. He did the same thing to Ren. But Ren didn't take his limbs like a petty thief in retaliation.

“Where’s Phasma?”

Brendol’s face registered confusion for a moment. “What are you talking about?”

Hux thinned his lips and considered pressing the issue. What could his father be playing at with this ignorance? Was it possible that Phasma had been absorbed into the Trooper program? He just needed to find her, and he could have her take care of both Cardinal and-

His eyes widened, and he took a step back, his arms going behind his back. They hadn’t gone to Parnassos. Phasma was still there, living under whatever conditions she and Brendol had scorched the planet to destroy.

“Nothing,” he finished quickly. His eyes shifted to the door. “When will my Commanding Officer arrive?”

Brendol’s eyebrows rose fractionally. “I commed her. She’ll be here shortly.” He turned to leave again, glancing back over his shoulder.

“Keep your mouth shut, Armitage. Tomorrow, you’ll be doing the rote physical with Cardinal. I’ll expect you to take his orders.”

Something inside him snapped. It snapped with the kind of finality he'd been trying so hard to avoid during these trials. It was the breaking of a dam, letting forth all the things he'd pushed down so well. And there were so many things to push him over the edge this time. The rote physical, which was completely useless, a mockery of the program. The idea that his father seriously expected him to take orders from his sycophant, something he’d always threatened but they’d both known wasn’t something that would ever happen.

It was seeing his father again, which really wasn't fair.

Hux lunged, his vision red, and he forgot about the pain in his arm as his prosthetic locked around Brendol's throat. They both fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs, Hux on top of his father. He managed to knock the air out of him, and Brendol beat ineffectively at him.

“Perhaps _you_  need to lead the rote physical exercises, _General_ ,” Hux snarled down into his face, his prosthetic tightening, his other hand in Brendol’s coarse gray-white hair. “It’s what I’d do with ancient Imperial wash-ups like you.”

“ _Armitage_ ,” he heard from the doorway, and before he could glance up and confirm Bariss’s voice, that she’d used his first name _again_ , he felt his muscles lock painfully in a stun blast, and he lost consciousness.

 

 

* * *

 

  
When he woke, he recognized the single-occupancy Officer berths on the _Repletion_. He tried to push his hair out of his eyes, and winced in pain, his right arm nearly immobile. He moved his left instead, pushing himself up to sitting and dragging a palm through his hair. He looked down and realized his boots, tunic, and command cap had been removed, and he remained in his undershirt, suspenders, johdpurs, and socks. The bare works of his prosthetic right arm were visible again, the reality of it jarring after the physical pain had made it feel whole. A red light winked on and off near his wrist.

He frowned, glancing around. Why was he in this bed? Certainly strangling Brendol hadn’t earned him a promotion. Realistically, he’d have expected to be dead, or in the brig on some fabricated charge.

His head was throbbing, the low-level ringing he'd come to associate with the absence of Ren and his increasingly ridiculous situations humming below the pulsing pain of taking a stun blast. His body still tingled in the aftermath. Abruptly, he decided to put in his leave request, as soon as… whatever this was, his punishment, was decided and completed. He could look up Ben Solo in the meantime. He needed to get out of here. He couldn’t be involved in Brendol Hux’s Trooper program one more moment. Not with Brendol and Cardinal running things, their confidence unchecked for so many years. He’d kill Cardinal on the way out, and he’d come back with Ben and-

The door opened and Kor Bariss entered, looking much the same as always in her Colonel’s uniform. Her dark hair was swept up in her usual neat bun, and her expression was as suspicious and hard as always. Hux frowned as she took a presumptuous seat next to him, the thin, worn mattress pitching him toward her.

“Armitage-”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Hux interrupted her, squeezing his eyes shut, then opening them to glare at her. “Don’t call me that.”

Bariss rolled her eyes, crossing her arms. “Okay, _Major Hux_ , we’ll do it this way. You’re in deep shit.”

He looked around, brushing off her comment. “Is this your room?”

“Where else would it be? What is _wrong_  with you today?”

His eyes went to hers. Brown, unwavering. She was looking for weakness. He didn’t care at this point. He wasn’t weak, and she could have whatever she wanted from him. He wouldn't be here much longer. “I woke up with a desire to succeed,” he drawled, looking her up and down again. “Why am I in your bedroom, Colonel?”

“Why do you think?” she snapped, standing and pacing, agitated. The mattress dipped back up, and Hux put his palm on her bed to stop it. “You can’t keep pushing him like that, Armitage. He’s going to ruin everything, and you know it.” She stopped to glare at him. Her agitation surprised him. She never would have shown this much emotion in front of him, let alone on his behalf. It was suspicious. Why was she playing his ally, especially when he was in such obvious disfavor?

“Can’t you keep your head down for one more month? Pay some fucking lip service? Certainly you can see how that would benefit us.”

_Us_. Hux blinked at her, scowling. “Are you my Commanding Officer?”

“Fuck,” she muttered, her expression shifting from anger to wariness. “Did you hit your head? Did Cardinal get to you in the Training Hall?”

The implication that Cardinal was apparently sent to physically punish him was unsettling, more because it implied that he let it happen. Setting that aside, Bariss’s non-answer implied that she was his Commanding Officer, which was in some ways worse, given the history between the two of them. He would not have given Kor Bariss power over himself.

He put on a show of rolling his eyes. “Fine. Punish me.” He held his left wrist out. “Get it over with. I’ve got better things to do than play Brendol and Cardinal’s little power games.”

“Do you? Do you really?” She reached out and grabbed his right bicep, the pistons whining below her firm grip. Pain shot through his arm, and he hissed and jerked away. “Don’t touch me.”

“ _Don’t touch me_ ,” she mocked. She began pacing again, not looking at him. “You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t take the other one.”

“He said as much. I’d like to see him try.”

She threw her hands up. “Because you were so effective at stopping it _last time_? You know your father! You know you won’t see it coming!”

Hux’s jaw clenched. He hated that the same could be said of his own methods. He looked toward the wall. “I would. I’m smarter than him.”

She rolled her eyes. “I hate how similar you two are. One of you is bad enough.”

“ _Don’t_ ,” he warned, then shook his head. This familiarity was out of place. Whatever friendliness had existed between them had ended badly after Hux’s rejection, and after they’d begun their professional lives together. Hux preferred that to… this, whatever this was, where Bariss was lecturing him to be careful around his father, and was his Commanding Officer that had apparently opted to not punish him, and instead-

“Why am I in your bedroom, Bariss?”

“Armitage-”

“ _Don’t_ ,” he snapped again, rising to his feet slightly unsteadily, the effects of her stun blast still tightening his muscles.

“Why kriffing not?! In another month, you’ll be living here! We’re both in deep shit, and I don’t know-”

“Wait,” he cut her off, closing his eyes, then opening them again. An uneasy feeling hit him, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. “Why will we be living together in another month?”

“We’ll be _cohabiting_ ,” she hissed. “And we need to at least _look like_  we genuinely enjoy each other’s company, don’t we?”

Hux sat back down, the ringing in his thoughts again. Cohabiting. They were cohabiting here, because Ren wasn’t-

“I said no, Kor,” he murmured quietly. He had said no even before meeting Ren. It was like taking orders from Cardinal. He just wouldn’t have- he wouldn’t have. Because no part of him wanted anything to do with another person. He'd always had Ben Solo.

He wanted to be sick on the floor. He wanted to lay down. He wanted to run away from here.

_He wanted Ren_.

He was staring into his lap when Bariss answered him, her voice thin and impatient and hard to understand over the ringing that filled his thoughts. “Arm-” She paused when Hux glanced up, furious. She sighed, licked her lips, and continued. “ _Hux_. Tell me what’s wrong with you today. Please.” She sat down again, laying a hand against his thigh, pitching her voice soft and caring, as she used to back when she’d tried to ingratiate herself to him. “I’m on your side. You know I am.”

He recoiled from her touch, brushing her hand off his thigh and standing. She shouldn’t touch him, she couldn’t. He was overreacting. He needed to stop. He needed to leave. He needed Ren.

“ _On my side_. I’m sure you are.” She’d always said that. She’d always had ulterior motives.

But there weren’t any ulterior motives here. He had nothing. She was the Colonel, she was his Commanding Officer. If anything, he-

He exhaled, and felt a tremor shake through his body, the ringing in his head crowding his thoughts, echoing with an aching pressure that only Ren could really help him with.

The ghost of his father had been difficult, but he’d not been truly shaken by any of it until now, when the possibility that some version of him might have-

Might not have thought that Ren was. Might not have ever _found_ Ren.

_No_. He didn’t want to think about that. There was no version of himself that wouldn’t find Ren, no matter where he was.

This was just _Bariss_. She had no motive, therefore… perhaps here, she was his friend, and not an Officer trying to seek his favor. He would need to end this, to get away from her confused, accusatory stare, from her room, from the fact that she’d taken off his tunic and boots and laid him out on her bed. Which they were scheduled to share in another month.

He rushed out a reply before he could unpack this any more, forcing himself to take a seat next to her on the mattress, close enough that their thighs brushed. “Pretend I woke up… confused this morning.” He made his tone soft, wondering how well this Bariss knew him. The Bariss he knew wouldn’t fall for his manipulations, would be able to see straight through him to the fact that he was losing his mind. He reached out, taking her hand with his left. “I don’t understand… I don’t _remember_.” He injected some urgency into his voice.

She glanced at his right arm, then back up into his face, her expression softening incrementally. “Do you need to go to medical? Did you take your injection this morning?”

Hux wondered what injection that was. Bariss seemed to think it was something for his arm. Knowing his father, it was probably the docility cocktail he used for reconditioning. He lowered his voice, tried to make things more conspiratorial. Squeezed her hand.

“I don’t want to go to medical. You know why.” He looked away, releasing her hand to slump over, resting his face in his palm. His frustration was not entirely an act. “Bariss. _Kor_. I don’t remember us… being together. I don’t remember losing my arm. I don’t remember… I don’t remember what my father was talking about.” He looked at her, rolling his face sideways, to glance at her. “ _Please_. Why am I in your room?”

Bariss studied him. Hux could tell that she sensed a lie, but she knew him well enough to see that he wasn’t feigning his distress. He wondered how often he spoke this sincerely to her. She seemed discomfited by his directness after a moment, and dropped her gaze. She twisted her hands together in her lap, a nervous gesture she’d had since she was a girl. “We’re cohabiting. In another month, once my mission to Ret-Mata is finished. We’ll live together here after that, and you won’t have to. Whatever happens to you in those Officer berths, it won’t happen anymore.”

Well. That sounded pleasant. Hux didn’t even want to know what that entailed. Beatings? Suffocation? Framing him for some crime or other? There had been plenty of horrors in the public sleeping chambers when he was younger, and he’d been good at warding them all off. They’d stopped once things had gotten better, and after Hux had begun living with children closer to him in age.

But maybe here, things hadn’t gotten better. He heard something creak and judder in the wall, and the lights dipped and brightened. He hardly noticed, even after a single day.

He’d dealt with the dangers of public sleeping chambers before. Somehow, this kindness from Bariss was worse. He couldn’t understand it. “I don’t remember why or how we agreed to cohabit, Korr.” He paused, certain about the one thing. “You asked, and I said no.”

Apparently Hux was right. Her expression sharpened, and she looked back into his face, her hands stilling in her lap. “Well, you got a little more desperate after your father took your arm,” she explained acerbically.

He straightened, looking at her sharply. Something about that… “What does my father have to do with us cohabiting?” Certainly not even Bariss was willing to give up private quarters for a ‘friend.’

“You really don’t remember, do you?” She shook her head, full of wonder. “He took your arm to make you unsuitable for the army. He tried to get rid of you through a diplomatic trade, an arranged partnership to the Sovereign of Weba. You emphatically refused, told him you were too important to the training program. So.”

Hux clenched his jaw. He knew the Sovereign of Weba. They had encountered that planet almost a dozen years ago. They could not be negotiated with, and were relatively wealthy for an Unknown Regions planet. The Order had needed their kitanium ore, and the revenue from selling it. The Sovereign of Weba had insisted on nothing less than securing an alliance by joining themself with the leader of the First Order. No matter that the First Order didn’t have a leader in the way that they wanted (although part of him would have loved to see Snoke decline this offer), and no matter that their biology wasn’t compatible with humans. They’d offered to keep the diplomat, until Hux had intervened on the diplomat’s behalf. Then they'd refused to negotiate unless Hux came planetside.

Ren had been the one to engineer the hostile takeover of their kitanium mines. Apparently here, Brendol had encountered this planet so many years later, and had thought Hux’s life a fair trade for the ore. Of course Hux had refused, and of course Brendol had gotten his revenge.

“Right. Of course Brendol would think that losing an arm would somehow make me less-” He stopped himself, looking over at her sharply. “Whose idea was it for us to cohabit?”

The solution was too neat. In Brendol’s mind, Hux would be worth nothing after Brendol had taken the pleasure of his humiliation. The only worth Hux would have to his father after that would be whether he could produce Hux children. Brendol had never managed it after Hux, though he’d certainly tried often, and with a variety of suitors. Hux had never been interested in his own children, never bothered to see whether he was similarly infertile. Brendol had only just begun asking if Hux’s prick worked before Hux had killed him.

Placating Brendol with the possibility of children was too neat a solution to this. It would be the most effective way to spare his life, which was certainly in danger, if Hux had fallen to such a place.

But he was still certain that he would never suggest it willingly himself.

She rolled her eyes. “It was _my_  idea, yes. You could barely get the lie out of your mouth in front of your father, not even to stop him stabbing you in the back.” She scowled at him, more of her old animosity returning. “I get it. You still don’t like it. We won't touch each other.” Suspicion crept into her expression, and she surveyed his face again. “Are you being intentionally cruel right now? We also talked about this. About a baseline of fucking decency, Armitage. Don’t take the situation out on me.”

He turned away. The reprimand stung, and made him sound overly paranoid. Made her sound benevolent, like a _friend_  who expected nothing in return. For a moment, he allowed himself to consider the possibility. No suspicion, no plots, just he and Bariss against his father.

But he thought about Bariss, about her ingratiating manner as they grew up. The light touches on shoulder and arm. The private conversations. The _just tell me what’s really bothering you_  and the _you won’t believe-_  and that final offer to cohabit, the invitation to a life partnership. How that would have benefited her.

He thought about her using his first name in front of those fucking pirates, before he’d shot her.

“An easy opportunity. Convenient for you.”

“I’m your friend,” she snapped. “Nobody knows better than I do that you would _never have a partner_. Against my better judgment, I don’t want to see you dead or sent away. You’ve made this very difficult for me.”

“I’d have been miserable any other way.” His voice was growing louder, he was still losing his temper. There was an angle, he just didn’t see it. “How _convenient_.”

“ _Try it_ ,” she snapped. “Do one more thing today, Armitage. I’m already falsifying your punishment. Pick a fight we me, or your father, or Cardinal, and see what happens. I’ll throw you in the brig and put in the court-martial request to your father. He’ll send Opan to execute you quietly rather than process the official discipline, and you know what?” She threw her hands up, cutting a glare at her. “ _Not a single person will care._ ”

Without thought, he swept his leg behind her, knocking her to the floor as he had his father earlier, some part of him amused that all the Officers seemed vulnerable to this technique. He fell on top of her, feeling a rib crack beneath him as his weight bore into her.

She grunted, eyes wide, arms reaching up to shove him away.

Hux dodged, grabbing her sidearm and shooting her with it. He hadn’t bothered to check the settings. It had been on stun earlier. But if she didn’t care if he was executed, neither did he care if she was. He thought about shooting her in front of the Quarren pirates. He stared at her inert body a moment longer, then grabbed her code cylinders and comm.

He stole a fresh tunic from her closet, annoyed that her much broader build meant that it was an ill fit. It was long enough though, and it matched his teal pants, so it would pass. He looked for and found his own command cap, pulling it firmly over his head and down lower than regulation. He stepped over Bariss’s body and exited the room, not looking back.

Co-habiting. _Of course_. She’d probably schemed with Brendol to engineer the whole thing.

There’d be no permission for his leave this time. He couldn’t stay here another moment, living in Bariss’s rooms, doing rote physical with his father’s stunted army. He didn’t even want to take the time to find Cardinal.

He’d have Ren do that later. They’d come back and take this ship, and the Order would be theirs. For what it was worth. He was sure the Troopers would respond to his orders, if he and Ren took out his father first. It would all be easy with Ren.

His head was pounding, the dissonant buzzing tearing through his thoughts, pulsing in time with the pain in his arm, which he was not bothering to hold stationery on his way through the ship.  He recognized he was angry. Absolutely, apoplectically furious. He blamed his father, and Cardinal. He just… they’d taken his arm, and obviously-

If he stopped to think about any of this, he would regret what happened to Bariss. He had to go. He had to find Ren, and the two of them had to fix it.

Ren might ask about Bariss, might remember her.  It wasn't.  It wasn't always _bad_.  Even when he forced them together for his own amusement.

 

 

_Bariss allowed a hint of pleasure into her features as she pulled the large chair up to the opposite side of Hux's desk. He had summoned Bariss without a clear purpose, though he assumed, correctly, that she would think it was a debrief for her last mission. Instead, Hux had cleared his desk and covered it with a black cloth in order to better enjoy the special meal he'd ordered -_ _a rice and waterfowl sausage delicacy from Athshe, along with an oddly-shaped bottle of some sort of violet local drink._

_"Armitage," she said quietly, obviously pleased."How unlike you."_

_"The mission was an unqualified success, Captain. One that will-"_

_He paused when the door to his office slid open. Ren stepped through, freezing just far enough inside that the door slid shut behind him. He was still wearing his helmet and armor from the mission, torn and stained and battered, every inch the warrior returning victorious. Hux stood, smirking at him and gesturing to the seat at the side of the desk._

_"Ren. Join us."_

_Ren stood in place, and Hux cleared his expression, sitting back down behind his desk and reaching for his own portion of the meal. He saw that Bariss had frozen as well, her gloved hands wrapped around the duranium edges of the tin plate, her gaze lowered to the food._

_He could feel the pulse of Ren's thoughts across his own, discordant and jangled. He often returned this way from missions. Keyed up, aggressive, unable to settle to a day-to-day routine again. Hux had hoped that the meal would help._

Eat something _, he encouraged, feeling the fatigue and soreness of Ren's body as well as Ren could._ You must be tired _._

_"What is this?" Ren queried instead in the harsh rasp of his vocoder, taking a step forward and pausing again, his robes swinging around his legs, his body stiff and ready for combat._

_"A special occasion."  Hux uncorked the strange vessel the distilled drink came in, and filled the three glasses at the makeshift dinnertable. The liquid was thick and viscous, violet-hued and dark. Hux sniffed it uncertainly before he flicked his gaze to Bariss, who was still staring straight down, and then to Ren. "Those supply routes you helped secure on the surface of Athshe will provide an unprecedented revenue stream for the Order. That alone will nearly double our profit during the annual cycle."  He brought the glass to his lips and took a sip. The liquid slid unpleasantly over his tongue, and he nearly choked on it. The taste was somehow astringent and overly sweet. He didn't let the reaction show on his face, instead setting the glass down carefully next to his plate, focusing his gaze on Bariss, but sending his praise, his elation, just how_ good _this was, to Ren._

_"This is the most significant victory we've ever had, and it was the two of you that made it a success."  At this, Bariss did straighten and look up, though she still let no expression show on her face. "I wanted to... celebrate."  He gestured to the food. It really was unlike him. But. There was a pleasant kind of synchronicity to enjoying the fruits of Athshe on the eve of such an overwhelming success. He was truly, genuinely_ happy _, and wished to reward the two of them._

_In contrast, Ren was tired, exhausted. He stepped closer to the desk, then collapsed into the chair, his posture and filthy appearance at odds with the dinner that Hux had prepared, and his and Bariss's own uniforms. He saw Bariss's expression twist slightly as Ren's hands, still in his dirty gloves, fell to either side of his plate. But she ignored him, grabbing a fork and taking a bite of sausage instead._

_Hux stripped his gloves off, staring pointedly at Bariss's hands until she did the same._

_This was also far more awkward than he had imagined. He knew Ren and Bariss didn't get along, that they'd had missions go so poorly that they'd been disciplined. But they'd been working together for nearly two years, and he'd assumed they were used to each other by now. He couldn't celebrate the mission with one and not the other, and if he was ever to eat a meal for a mission, this was the time._

_"Did you eat this while on the surface?" Hux ventured, biting into a sausage. The meat was greasy but flavorful, and he found he liked it. The rice was mild and dry, and the two complimented each other, even visually - the sausage was an odd shade of pinkish-red, the rice an unsettling shade of green._

_Bariss answered. "No. Just rations. We were in the woods most of the time. As you know."  She shoveled food into her mouth, not looking at him. He exhaled through his nose, glancing at Ren._

Take your helmet off. You're being ridiculous.

You're the one that said I shouldn't remove it.

_He wanted to admonish Ren, explain that this was Bariss, and Ren had already thoroughly embarrassed them both in front of her. But he didn't want to provoke Ren right now, not after he'd done so well._

She's seen you, Ren. And you must be hungry _._

_Ren sighed heavily through his vocoder, and Hux caught the sight of Bariss rolling her eyes. But Ren obediently removed his helmet, dropping it to the floor with a clang. Hux studied his face as he bent over to slowly peel off his filthy gloves. Ren had been planetside for nearly two weeks. He looked tired, pale, and not particularly happy to be here. His hair was matted and dirty, done in a tangle of messy braids that had obviously been under his helmet for days. Once his gloves were gone, Ren began shoveling the food into his mouth with bad grace, though Hux could tell through his thoughts that he liked it. The corner of his mouth quirked in amusement, and he reached for his glass again._

_"Do the two of you always take your meals together in your room?"_

_Hux's attention whipped back to Bariss, who was watching Hux stare at Ren. Hux clenched his jaw and gave himself a moment to master his embarrassment. He thought about a sarcastic non-answer, but Bariss was aware of their relationship, and he was in a generous mood. There was no harm in answering the question._

_"Not always.Sometimes. Dinner often. Occasionally breakfast."_

_"He eats lunch with you, doesn't he?" Ren asked, voice low, without looking up._

_"No," Bariss replied. "Almost never. Do you even eat lunch?"_

_Hux exhaled sharply, pausing with a bite of the rice before his mouth. "How did the two of you manage to work together long enough to finish the mission if you can't be civil to one another?"_

_"Work is work," Ren answered brusquely, around a mouthful of food. Several grains of rice sprayed onto the tablecloth, and Hux narrowed his eyes._

_"Agreed," Barriss added, scraping her own plate into more manageable portion sizes._

_"Then I am pleased that the two of you displayed such exceptional professionalism while on such an important mission." No amount of self-control could have stopped the sarcasm from creeping into that response._

If she's with me, she's not with you.

Ren, _Hux cautioned sharply._

_But that seemed the limit to Ren's badgering, and the comment he offered aloud was civil."I'll drink to professionalism," Ren said, holding his own glass up. Hux watched him, waiting for him to drink, but he didn't, looking confused as he glanced between Hux and Bariss._

_"I want a toast."_

_Bariss paused, looking over at him._

_"Toast?" Hux asked, not sure where this was going. "Do you want me to have a droid send some up?"_

_"No, I want to. Toast, to celebrate." He waved his glass in the air again, the dark violet liquid rolling sluggishly around the clear bowl. "I want to drink to it."_

_"Go ahead."  Hux gestured, waiting for him to continue._

_Ren looked amused."We're all supposed to do it together.To show that we all agree."_

_"Drink together?" Bariss was just as lost as Hux._

_"It's just a custom," Ren said quietly, meeting Hux's eye._

A Republican custom? _Hux queried as he reached for his glass. Bariss watched him, then grabbed her own._

Apparently so. _Ren was amused, which was good. If he was amused, he wasn't on the verge of anger._

_Ren held his glass aloft in demonstration, and after a moment, Hux mimicked him, then Bariss._

_"The person making the toast says it, then you knock the glasses together and drink."_

_"Okay," Hux confirmed. "Are you the one... making the toast?" It seemed ridiculous, but Ren was earnest._

_"Yeah.To professionalism."_

_Ren brought his glass to Hux's, and then to Bariss."It's how the Order works best," Hux clarified, then brought his drink to his lips, taking another swallow._

_"Mmm. This is disgusting." Ren coughed after taking a sip, making a rude noise with his mouth and sitting his glass down. He shot a betrayed look to Hux. "You drank it earlier. How did you get it down?"_

_"Professionalism," Hux offered, then took another sip to spite Ren._

_"It really is awful," Bariss added, draining her glass halfway and smirking at Hux. "What's it made of?"_

_"Who knows.The Athshe representative sent it up to the ship as a gift. I thought to add it to the meal."_

_"Did they give you the food, too?" Ren asked. Hux was surprised to hear him make conversation after his sullen acquiescence to the meal. Even his toast had been tinged with an insult to Bariss, though it was one that she had obviously returned._

_"No, I requested they send a chef shipboard to prepare the meal ahead of the final leg of the mission. They were more than happy to comply."_

_"It's good," Ren offered, hunching over his plate and scraping up the remnants of the meal._

_"It is," Bariss agreed quietly, glancing at Ren out of the corner of her eye, then straightening her shoulders and continuing her own meal._

_Hux rolled a shoulder and didn't respond. There were certainly worse ways to spend an evening._

 

 

He moved across the ship, Bariss’s authorization opening every door he tried. He made it to one of the TIE hangers, and sneered when he saw how few ships there were.

It didn’t matter. He scanned his cylinder, climbing into one of the medium transports, and stole it.

He defected.

It wasn’t his First Order, anyway. He would come back with Ren, and would make it so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hux and Bariss are in a fake relationship, for lack of a better term. Hux's father is still alive, and is actively trying to get rid of him, accidentally or intentionally. There is a mention of a diplomatic arranged marriage situation that Hux declined previously. In order to save Hux's life, Bariss proposes a cohabitation (the FO doesn't have marriage here). It's implied that Brendol agrees to it because he thinks Hux and Bariss will have children. Bariss knows that Hux has no sexual interest in her and is playing along for Brendol's benefit.
> 
> Heavy shit. The soap operatics resume to normal levels of Ren thirst by the end of the chapter.
> 
> I also name-drop a location from _The Word for World is Forest_ by Le Guin near the end of the chapter, in case that looks familiar.


	13. Part Three: Laüstic - Chapter 2

**Fourteen years ago…**

 

  
Hux returned to the First Order and began his posting as a Lieutenant on Laymar.  As far as planets went, it was tolerable - the few settlements were far apart, sparsely populated, and humble.  There was no chaotic crush of human and alien bodies outfitted in ridiculous outfits and navigating the planet in solo transports.  The settlements were all human, populated by the First Order, and mostly concerned with mining the small duraluminum deposits and turning the ore into shipping crates.  The base was near the small mining town of Zorll, on the planet's equator and mired in a thick, dark forest.  It was chilly, but not bitter cold, and not an overly dangerous posting.  The forest was full of loud creatures - noisy buzzing insects, some species of cacophonous cawing bird along with a dozen with quieter songs, and a handful of large predators that were easily dispatched with blasters. 

Most of the personnel enjoyed the easy life on the base immensely.  Hux was immune.  He found he could not stop dwelling on his leave, no matter how he distracted himself or tried to dismiss his circular thoughts.  But he also could not get used to being planetside.  He missed the thrumming of the starship engines, the subtle movements of a large vessel through space.  The relative silence of even the noisy Laymar forest haunted him, and he found that he slept very little during the long, cold evenings alone in his personal quarters - a privilege he should have enjoyed more, but did not.

Though small, Laymar was one of the Order's first planetside operations.  The original purpose had been to defend an isolated holding near a dangerous shipping lane until they could secure the local routes.  But the base also presented a unique training opportunity within the Order, and Hux had been tasked to do training sim analysis along with developing planetside war games for several rotating units of Troopers.

It was a huge honor. It should have been a proud moment, and an opportunity to develop strategies that could be immediately implemented fleet-wide.  Strategies that his father could no longer take credit for.

Instead, Hux began the posting feeling defeated, and had a hard time focusing on the minutiae of his tasks. Still, he threw himself into it, hoping to develop a routine that helped him find his way back to his former well-disciplined self. He took very few off-shifts, which puzzled the older ex-Imperial Commanding Officers who treated the posting as a retirement position.

Hector Kan, the base's Commander, spoke to him often.  Or, rather, Hux tried to speak with him, and was often chastised.

“Armitage, we just discussed the procedure yesterday.”

“Yes. And I finished it today, sir.”

“To what end?” Major Kan slumped back in his chair, a brittle relic in a uniform that hung off his skeletal frame. One of the only sources of amusement Hux had each day was finding out whether Kan had succumbed to death overnight. “We won’t have the bodies to run the tests until next week. And even then, you know they’ll have two weeks of basic before we can even attempt something like this.”

Hux clenched his jaw. “I thought we could discuss the methods beforehand. Fine-tune the procedure before it was implemented.”

Kan waved a hand through the air. Hux watched it shake feebly until it returned to the desktop, steadied below the other. “Unnecessary. I’m sure it will be fine. We can do all the adjusting when the Troopers are actually drilling.” He leaned forward, coughing, and Hux held his breath, waiting for him to expire face-down on the desk. He did not. Once he had himself under control, he inhaled deeply, then stared down Hux with his tired, filmy brown eyes.

“When was the last time you took a leave? Perhaps time off will do you good, Armitage. Give you perspective.”

Hux felt a pain pulsing behind his eyes. He tightened his jaw incrementally before speaking, privately horrified by the tell. “I had one just before my posting, sir. After graduation.”

The Major took a few more wheezing breaths as he considered that, studying Hux. “Life is short, Armitage.” He winked one of his eyes, in a slow pantomime of the motion that made Hux’s skin crawl. “It’s okay. I won’t tell Brendol.”

“Of course, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Hux ignored him, developing his own training programs in private and thoroughly exhausting himself. He needed to keep his mind occupied, lest his thoughts wander to Ben Solo. When that happened, in the darkness of the long Laymar nights, the only way to distract himself was to take a private run through the dense forest that surrounded the base. He always did it armed, dodging between the massive trunks and concentrating on not tripping over the root systems or loose branches in the darkness, or keeping an ear out for the gebben cats that prowled the area. It was foolish, but nothing ever happened to him, and even the danger wasn’t enough to keep his mind off Ben. It always took hours to outrun his regret. Sometimes, he ran until his shift started again, and the utter exhaustion combined with his duties were enough of a distraction.

Rationally, he told himself his trip had gone well. Far better than he could have hoped for. The odds of even meeting Ben Solo were slim, actually having a conversation with him nearly impossible. That he’d fulfilled nearly every fantasy he’d entertained through adolescence was… extraordinary. He was never going to convince Ben to come back to the First Order with him, and in retrospect, he saw that for the lie it was, a self-deception that allowed him to go through with the rather juvenile wish fulfillment of the whole trip.

So, really, he had succeeded. More than that, since he obviously had Ben wrapped around his finger by the end. From a distance, Ben’s logic had been more sound than Hux’s - Hux should have promised him they’d spend another week together. They would have both enjoyed it, and it would have been necessary to further encourage Ben to the Order, if Hux hadn’t been rejected outright.

Hux had reacted… _poorly_  to Ben’s rejection, which hadn’t even been a rejection, not really. He told himself that nearly every day.

If that hadn’t happened, there would have been a part of Hux that could have justified another leave, on the orders of Major Kan, to go see Ben. That would have been-

With just a little more time, Ben would have come back with him.

He told himself that nobody, especially someone in the public eye with a unique role like Ben Solo, impulsively made a lifestyle change like the one Hux had suggested. Hux would never do it himself, so why should Ben Solo, who was much more influential, important, adored, _necessary_?

But Hux knew that meeting him again, trying to work out some other arrangement, wouldn't have worked either. Both of them had their prisons, and although he’d tried to convince Ben that escaping was necessary, Hux had returned to his own.

And besides, Ben had rejected him. He was done with all that now.

Because Hux was a weak piece of shit, he’d had the thin slice of focusing crystal set in duranium and had hung it between his ID tags. Ben would never use it to find him, and the idea that he even _could_  was absurd. Ben had made that up. But Hux kept it, because Ben Solo had given it to him. He tried not to look at it.

He also did not search the holonet for news of Ben, and congratulated himself for it, though the Laymar base had limited holonet access. Whenever he thought of the crystal, he thought about Ben’s weapon, and the countless holovids he'd seen of Ben using it. Ben would have found a new focusing crystal, of course. If there was any new vids of Ben and his saber at all, it would be the same deep violet, the same smooth, steady blade. The crystal was just a trinket, it was nothing to a Jedi.

Hux should have taken more holos of Ben when he had the chance. Ben smiling. Ben laughing. Ben’s face when Hux had sucked his cock that first time. Ben’s face after he’d tried to suck Hux’s. Ben using his saber just before he’d shattered it into pieces. Ben, shirtless and sweat-covered, face flushed red and breathless.

Anything but what Ben had looked like just before Hux left.

He did have the one holo of the two of them kissing. He hid it deep in the personal files on his datapad, secured behind his thumbprint and three passwords. He hated looking at that, too, but he would sometimes pull it up when he couldn’t stop thinking of his last look at Ben.

Hux told himself that the experience had been a good one, and that he hadn’t told anyone about it because it had been an adolescent fantasy that had actually worked. It was embarrassing, really, and he was better off keeping it to himself.

It was insignificant.  Meaningless.  It was a good memory, really.  But still, he could not help the bitter feeling of rejection that swirled sourly in his stomach every single day on Laymar. The idea that it had been a defeat, and one that had meant more to him than any of his successes. It made him tense, anxious, and angry. He was more sharp and demanding with the Troopers than before. He earned a reputation for giving long, angry lectures about how poor performance reflected on the First Order. He withdrew even from the paltry social niceties he’d forced himself to attend previously, occasional drinks with the young officers, meant to help make and maintain connections.  He didn't care.

He worked, he ran, and he occasionally slept. He sometimes remembered to eat. He was promoted to Captain for his work on the training program, then Major, Commander of the entire Laymar base, when Kan finally died, likely not at all aided by the increasingly thin mix of oxygen Hux began pumping through the ventilation system. Three other Trooper recruits also died, those from planets with more oxygen-rich atmospheres. Hux used the research to tweak the training program, realized he needed to acclimate the recruits to a wide range of climates.

Having a Command at his age was unprecedented. He received dozens of accolades, messages from High Command congratulating him and praising his hard work, telling him he had a bright future ahead.

He was angry every day, because Ben Solo had rejected him.

As the months passed, his training sims and routines outgrew the base, and he spent more and more time off-planet. It was more cost-effective for him to go to new Trooper recruits aboard the Destroyers rather than bring the Troopers to Laymar. He worried incessantly that Ben wouldn’t find him if he moved around. But Ben wouldn’t, of course. He’d have to go to Ben on Hab-118. But he wouldn’t do that, either. He couldn't

They gained a new Captain when Phasma was recruited, really one of the most brilliant finds his father had ever made. Hux did the introductory routines with her personally, and she was exceptional, picking up the techniques far faster than any other person Hux had ever seen. He wondered about her life before. Finding her had been some sort of crucible that his father wouldn't speak of, which was even more intriguing - he would have bragged about it, under most circumstances. Hux had attempted to ask Phasma about it directly, but she’d pointedly ignored him. Rather than being offended, Hux was impressed. Most recruits bent over backwards to earn his favor. Apparently Phasma felt she didn't need to.  She was right.

Still, he had been rather shocked when she approached him and offered to kill Brendol. Hux was coy at first, but soon realized the offer was genuine. Whatever had happened on the surface of Parnassos must have been unspeakable.  Not only had Brendol turbolasered the surface of the planet, scouring it of all life, Phasma was willing to murder the only other witness (the General of the army!) to keep whatever it was silent.

He had consented to Phasma’s offer. He wasn’t sure what about his habits and manner suggested he would welcome patricide, but with Phasma’s plan, it didn’t matter a great deal if others picked up on it. It would not look like murder. They never really discussed it beyond the practicalities, just as they never discussed why Phasma wanted to do it it in the first place. Her reasons were irrelevant. But the relevant takeaway was that she was willing to kill Brendol, who had appeared to be on nearly friendly terms with her. So Hux watched his back. She was an excellent, useful, deadly tool, but one that needed to be properly handled. It was one of the best lesson his father had taught him.

Ben could have helped him with Phasma. Her, and the ex-Imperials that dogged him nearly every day. There were still a few involved at the higher levels of the Trooper training programs, and they resented the amount of control Hux had earned. The last six months had seen an increase in hostilities as they realized what a mistake it had been to give Hux control of indoctrination and conditioning while he'd still been an eager cadet. It was considered a “finished” task that could not be improved upon. Hux not only improved it, but re-cast all the materials with himself. It had taken the more senior officers _years_  to notice that this made all new recruits, any Trooper or Officer who had been re-conditioned, and many who were viewing the routine holos particularly loyal to _Armitage Hux_. Personally.

They were a serious threat, and Hux had to be very careful. He fantasized about sending Ben after the sneering older guard, all the relics who still called him ‘Armitage,’ and he fantasized about Ben opening Hux up with his fingers afterwards, pinning him with his weight, telling him that all of it belonged to the two of them.

He allowed himself to think of Ben, couldn’t help it, when the news came from the New Republic Senate that Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker were the children of Darth Vader. Ben Solo was his grandson.

Hux had somehow not drawn the Vader parallels in his own plans for Ben in the First Order, which seemed like a failure of imagination. That there was a tangible blood link between the two was too much for Hux, and he masturbated furiously to the thought of being fucked by Darth Vader’s grandson, or having those big, full, obscene lips around his cock. He could choke others with the Force as Vader did, but he had been so eager to gag on Hux's cock to please him.

Such sessions happened more than once after that particular revelation, and Hux always felt bitter and lonely afterwards. Like even more of a rejected failure. What could Ben Solo have seen in him, even for that short period of time?  It had felt... good, so good. But of course Ben had probably already forgotten him.

And so Hux tried to forget him, burying himself in work. Weeks passed, then months.

Eventually, it was decided that the Laymar base had served its purpose. The trade route was secure, and Hux had no more use for the location. He ceased his operations there and folded the program into the one in place on the _Finalizer_ , his father’s former Command and, incidentally, the ship where he had been grandfathered into a large, lonely Command Suite. It was the closest thing he had to a home. 

Once the decision was made, the Laymar base was emptied fast. It took only a week to turn it from an active base to little more than a clearing in the woods. Everything went smoothly until the last night, when Hux was startled from a light sleep by a complete emergency lockdown.

He sat straight up in bed, staring uncomprehendingly at an empty wall as he tried to understand what the blaring sirens and the blue strobing lights meant. Half-asleep, he assumed a hull breach, and all but ran from his bed to find an emergency breather. It took him only a moment to place his rooms, to understand he would not suffocate or freeze to death.

“Fuck,” he muttered, grabbing his service weapon from beside his bed. It was a perfect time to attack, Hux had only kept two units of Troopers to guard the last of the supplies being shipped off-planet and the prefab buildings that were being collapsed the following morning. He hadn’t thought he needed more, as the remnants of the operation held no value. Attacking them was ridiculous. There was nothing of value here, not even of the strategic sort.

Still, the sirens blared, and the blue lights flashed. Someone wanted them. 

He rushed to the door of his rooms with blaster drawn, then hesitated, his hand over the door lock. He was in his undershirt, pants, and boots, with his tags and the focusing crystal hanging outside his shirt. He had no armor, was not physically intimidating, and was not particularly adept in a fight. He brought his wrist comm to his mouth.

“Lieutenant Reddan, Captain Ean, Captain Seffak, report!”

There was crackling, then an audio-only transmission.

“Major, intruders in the hangar. One ship, eight individuals, sir, they’re-”

The transmission cut out abruptly. He returned to his desk and brought up the security feed in the hangar, still miraculously live.

When he saw the situation for himself, he rushed out the door at a full run, weapon still drawn, grabbing his command cap off his desk and clamping it over his hair.

He burst through the open door of the hangar, immediately assaulted with screams, heat, the flaring blue lights of lockdown and the smell of burning rubber and flesh. One of the transports had blaster scarring on the side, and Hux cursed, wondering if they’d be able to salvage it. They’d need it to get the rest of the supplies off-planet. But the transport was the least of his worries at the moment.

“Stop!,” he yelled, raising his voice and making it as much of a command as he could. Most of the Troopers obeyed (of course they did, they’d been conditioned to obey him specifically), and even a few of the young (very, _very_  young, Hux noted) opponents they were fighting stopped to look at him.

Ben Solo stopped, too. There were six dead Troopers at his feet. He was wearing what Hux recognized as his light sleeping robes, though they were torn, dirty, and bloody. His eyes were bloodshot, one was ringed with a dark bruise, and blood ran from the corner of his mouth. The tangled mess of his hair wreathed the battered ruin of his face, sodden and matted. Cuts covered his bare arms. His saber was drawn and active at his side.

Except it was not his saber. It was very, very different. Hux had to stare a moment at the deep red blade, the quillions on the side sputtering and humming loudly. It was still very unstable, even with the vents, and Hux could hear it from across the hangar, between the pauses in the siren. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

His eyes shifted up to meet Ben Solo’s gaze. Ben was sweaty, dirty, wet, and had seen more than one fight tonight. His chest was heaving, and his free hand was tensed at his side, ready. His eyes were wild, desperate, a little mad. He was furious and confused, and looked moments away from slaughtering them all. Hux could feel his anger creeping into his mind, pushing into his own thoughts, and he shivered. He had forgotten what it was like to see Ben, inside and out. And he hadn't known Ben had had... this in him. It was exquisite, and the rest of it fell away as Hux's breath caught and the reality of it hit him.

Ben had come back for him. Hux took another step forward without thinking, before analyzing the situation, before seeing _what had happened_.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, firmly, rationally. He needed this-

He swallowed, stopping his thoughts in their tracks. He… _wanted_ , but he knew what this looked like. What it was. He’d stupidly kept the crystal, giving the Jedi a clear path to his base, to the First Order-

“No,” Ben’s voice came out raw, defensive, anguished. He took a step forward himself, and Hux felt him press more firmly into his mind, his rage coiling around Hux’s thoughts, his regard like a sharp spike at the base of his brain. He shook his head, trying to rid himself of it.

“No _what._ ”

“It’s not that.” Ben swallowed and blinked, taking another step forward, bridging the distance between them. His saber was still spitting at his side. Ben shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment, and tried again. The skin of his face was slick with sweat or rain from wherever he'd come from. The skin was pale and haunted-looking, what wasn't bruised or cut.

“I came,” he explained simply, and he deactivated his lightsaber.

Hux looked around the destruction of the hangar, then pointedly down at the dead Troopers at Ben’s feet, variously decapitated, dismembered, and stabbed, the singes from Ben’s blade clear in their white armor. Hux knew all their numbers, knew their strengths and weaknesses. He also knew Ben’s, and couldn't make himself believe that Ben hadn’t come here to stop the First Order. 

“You came. You killed my Troopers.” Hux did not take a step back, though he badly wanted to, faced with Ben's anger and that new lightsaber.

“They-” Ben took another step forward, and Hux felt the anger press on him again. Ben's voice was deceptively quiet, and Hux had to strain to hear him over the sirens ringing through the mostly empty room. “They tried to stop me. I said I wanted to see you, and they tried to- to arrest me, pull us all off the ship-”

Right. Because Ben had shown up at a secret ground base, having somehow gone through a First Order blockade on the trade route, and the staff had not taken it well. Hux could sense his emotions. Deceit was not among them. He didn’t think Ben was lying. Ben had stopped when Hux had appeared, and Ben could kill him now, take him prisoner, if that’s what he wanted.

 _He wanted Hux, came to be with him, just like he promised_ , the most private part of his thoughts whispered. Hux swallowed, did not allow himself to be sentimental. 

Ben’s tone was getting increasingly defensive. Hux squeezed his eyes shut, counted to five, opened them again. Gestured to Ben and the soggy, bedraggled children behind him.

"Kill the lockdown, that's an order. I know him," he snapped, turning from Ben for a moment, not caring who followed the order.  He glared into the strobing blue light until the siren cut out, until the haunted blue light evened out into the industrial yellows of the hangar. He sighed, wishing this could have happened differently, and turned back to Ben. “Did this happen after you got off the ship? All the fighting you did?” He didn't think so, but he had to make sure.

Ben clenched his jaw, shook his head. Hux felt more anger, fury, anguish, hopelessness.

“ _Okay_ ,” he acknowledged tightly, closing his eyes again. He needed this to stop, needed to speak to Ben privately. “Will you and-” he gestured to the eight students behind him.

“My… knights,” Ben said absently, his gaze not leaving Hux’s.

Hux kept his reaction to the absurd title off his face, and Ben could probably sense his derision. Maybe. If they were as close as they had been.

 _Ben was close, was right here, was in Hux’s thoughts_ -

“Lieutenant,” Hux said thinly, not looking away from Ben.

“Major.” He heard movement to his left, and he turned to acknowledge. He saw Lieutenant Reddan, along with another dozen Troopers, their weapons drawn and pointing at the soggy, beaten group of Ben and the children he’d come with. Hux wondered how they had been a match for his Troops.

Then he remembered Ben, on that planet, and he didn’t.

“These… knights,” he gestured, not looking over. “They are my _guests_. They were unexpected, and there’s been a misunderstanding. Please find them quarters.”

“Yes, sir.” Her tone was even as she acknowledged the order, and she saluted. But her gaze dropped to the bodies, and she made her thoughts known, speaking in a bitter tone. “There’s been some quarters recently vacated.”

The deaths irked Hux as well. It was a massive waste of resources, but there was nothing to be done about it, and he let the slight insubordination from the Lieutenant pass. The adrenaline sung through his own veins, and he felt the pulse of Ben’s anger in his head, steady, throbbing.

“See to it, and continue to evacuate the facilities,” he said simply, turning away. His eyes met Ben’s again. “You’re coming with me.” He turned and walked back to his own private quarters, not bothering to see if Ben followed him.

He knew he did. He could feel Ben’s regard crawling all over him, along the back of his neck, across his shoulders, down to his heels. He was glad to have grabbed his cap, that he had covered the mess of his hair. He hated himself for thinking about it.

When they got back to Hux’s bare quarters, he stopped just inside, letting Ben pass him into the rooms before closing the door. He stared at it a moment, gathering his thoughts. It was unlike him not to know what to say.

Fury warred with… everything else. Hux could only really parse the anger, mostly his, but also Ben’s own, wrapping itself through his thoughts. But Hux knew anger was the wrong response in this moment. He could tell Ben that he shouldn’t have killed those Troopers, that he shouldn’t have picked a fight, that they would have commed Hux and he would have been there and they could have-

“Who are those children?” he asked the door, instead. It seemed like as good a place to start as any.

“My knights,” Ben answered, more firmly this time.

“Who are they, when they go home from their classes?” Hux turned around, and let his furious gaze bore into Ben’s. Ben’s eyes were unreadable, his face still swollen and stricken and beaten, the hilt of the lightsaber still in his hand.

“They don’t.” He licked his split lower lip, fury flashing across his features for a moment before his expression turned back to horrible sadness. Hux wasn’t sure whether to provoke him back to anger or try to assuage whatever was obviously _wrong_  with him. “They were once… Jedi trainees.”

“Ah.” So they were at least acquainted with Ben. “They are no longer Jedi trainees?”

His expression darkened again, and his fist clenched around the hilt of his lightsaber, his hand shaking. “There are no longer any Jedi trainees.”

It was all Hux could do to remain where he was, the unaffected look on his face, as the full fury of Ben Solo hit him, sunk itself into his mind, began tearing through and infecting his thoughts. Hux sensed the significance of this moment, that something had happened at the Jedi Academy, something that had beaten Ben badly and sent him to Hux. But Hux was struggling with his own feelings, which were still humiliation and rejection. He let that get the better of him, let it curl his lip.

“Your uncle has done something, then.” Perhaps he had died. Looking at Ben, Hux didn’t think so.

Hux found himself suddenly borne bodily into the door, his shoulders slamming into it hard enough to rattle his teeth. Ben’s face, bruised and broken in more ways than one, surged in front of him, brown eyes lost to whatever burned inside him. He hissed his answer into Hux’s face.

“He tried to kill me. In my sleep.”

Hux’s brows drew down. This didn’t sound like Luke Skywalker, and the shock of it, the absurdity of the statement, led Hux to be stupid in the moment.

“Are you sure?”

This was the wrong thing to say, and Ben shook him hard enough that his head hit the door and his cap fell to the floor. Ben's hand was fisted into Hux’s undershirt, and it bit into his neck and under his arms where Ben had him lifted off the floor.

“He _drew his lightsaber on me in my sleep_ ,” this time nearly bellowed into Hux’s face.

Ben’s rage pressed into him, again, twisting, painful, exacerbating his own weaknesses, his own anger, so inappropriate in the moment. He couldn’t help himself, couldn’t find the careful calculation, the manipulations, the plans he’d thought through, over and over again when he allowed himself a positive look at his future.

Ben had, of course, been gifted at summoning more genuine emotions from Hux. For better or worse. His lip curled again, his eyes narrowed, and he let his voice drip all the disdain, the contempt that he could muster.

“So you came running to me?” 

Ben’s eyes glittered dangerously. “You were so desperate to have me a year ago. I nearly had you in tears.”

It was as if Ben had slapped him, and Hux snarled, trying to kick out with a booted foot, struggling in Ben’s hold. Ben subdued his weak struggles by pinning all four limbs to the door with an invisible Force. He pulled his hand away from Hux's shirt and took a measured step back, the look of a furious predator on his face. Hux pulled frantically against the hold, not able to master his own anger, and still so full of Ben’s.

“And you said no!” Hux’s fury was authentic, genuine. He’d never let himself get like this in front of another person, nor even in the confines of his own mind. "I went to find you, and against all odds, I did! I gave you- I told you things, I shared with you like I never have with another person! We shared thoughts, our bodies, a mission! I-" He inhaled sharply, and he could feel his face heating. He still couldn't stop it. "I thought we were _together_ , after that. Connected. I thought it was understood. And you said no." 

Ben's thoughts left his head so quickly that he gasped. It was as if Ben took the anger with him, leaving Hux with only the embarrassment of that confession. Ben studied him, a hand over his mouth. He was, suddenly and awfully, still and calm.

"Well," Hux said bitterly, pulling at the holds again. "That still hasn't changed. I'm happy to have been the one who helped you develop your powers. Have you been reading a lot of minds since mine?"

Ben's voice was quiet, his eyes on Hux's, though he was still guarding his thoughts and hiding most of his expression. "No. It's still just you. It's so easy with you." "We were connected. We still are." He dropped his hand, and his expression hardened, his eyes narrowing. "Why do you think I came here tonight?"

“How should I know? You said no, Ben! You _chose_  to go back to Jedi training, your family, your true calling!” He used a mocking tone, knowing there was danger, not caring. “And how did that work out for you?”

Ben stepped forward again, pressing their chests together, the sodden, stained rags of his sleeping robes against Hux's clean undershirt. Ben's anger flooded his thoughts again, and Hux was sure he was going to be killed, that Ben Solo would clench his hand and extinguish his life. For a moment, he didn’t care, because he was too angry.

He felt the Force constricting around his calves and forearms. Squeezing. He could feel his face getting red, the breath coming harder. He continued to meet Ben's unsteady gaze.

“Did you hear about Darth Vader? My grandfather?”

Hux bared his teeth against Ben’s rough treatment, but couldn’t help the flash of memory the question invoked, of how he’d brought himself off to the idea when he’d found out. He saw Ben’s expression change, knew he could see the thought. His Force grip on Hux relaxed, though not enough to free him. Hux turned his face away, hating himself.

There were several excruciating moments before he heard Ben make a hitched breathing sound. He turned to look again, taking in his hunched shoulders, the tangle of dark hair obscuring his face. Ben’s head was down, and he was shaking.

Suddenly, the fury had retreated. And Ben Solo was laughing.

It built, and Ben was helpless to stop it as it got louder and louder. He still had Hux pinned against the door, and Hux watched, disinterested, as he shook, laughing hard enough that tears ran down his cheeks. It continued far longer than it should have, and Ben settled his hands around Hux’s waist. Hux had forgotten both how large Ben’s hands were and how much weight he’d lost over the year, and was embarrassed by the disparity. He also, very suddenly, realized that he held no power in the situation. It was all Ben. And it wasn't Ben's Force that had caused the revelation, but his hands on Hux's waist.

Ben leaned forward and pressed his forehead to Hux’s chest, still shaking, still laughing silently. Ben squeezed his hips as the Force hold disappeared completely. Hux put his hands out, ready to push Ben away, embarrassed and overwhelmed, but something stopped him. It was the sudden absence of emotion in his own thoughts, the realization that Ben had pulled back at some point during his laughing fit. He paused, unsure, then dropped his hands, deciding to let Ben hold him through... whatever this was. 

After nearly two long minutes, Ben pulled the both of them down to the floor, still shaking, and it was then that Hux realized Ben’s mood had shifted radically, again, and that Ben was sobbing into his chest, controlling his voice as his shoulders shook.

It had been some time since Hux had seen anyone but a child cry like this. Ben’s tears were not something that Hux was prepared to deal with. That was also true of Ben in general, tonight. All of this was too much. So he let Ben cry into his chest as he propped his back against the door of his rooms, with the bodies of his troopers cooling in his empty hangar. At least he couldn’t see Ben’s face.

They stayed like that for several minutes. Hux tried his best to let his anger and uncertainty drain away, to force himself to relax. But it was difficult. This was… it wasn’t _done_. It was somehow both his greatest fantasy and his worst nightmare, that Ben would come back to him by breaking onto his base, fighting his Troops, and collapsing in a sobbing, emotional mess in his room. He wasn’t at all prepared to deal with this, with any of it, and had no plan forward. There was just Ben, his hot tears soaking the front of his undershirt, his bruised face pressing the metal of Hux’s hidden ID tags into his chest. Hux could feel Ben sucking in great breaths against his chest.

He thought, perhaps, that he should comfort Ben. But the only comfort Hux ever gave was superficial and extremely rehearsed. He could offer kindness and reassurance to new recruits taken from a variety of situations. He meant it, always, but… they weren’t Ben, and their tears did not pull at him like this.

Eventually, Hux put his hands in Ben’s hair, letting his fingers pull at the sodden, disgusting mess of it.  Ben didn't react to his fingers catching the tangles, but Hux forced himself to be gentle, letting his thumb stroke Ben's temple, his fingers stroking Ben's scalp, surprisingly warm for how wet and cold his hair was.

He closed his eyes and rested his head back against the door, allowing himself to focus on the small, quiet sounds Ben was making and how his scalp felt under his fingers.  This, he could do. He'd missed touching Ben. He'd missed how it had felt to be close to someone. It wasn't something he realized before this moment, but it had probably fed into his misery over the past year.

And so he was gentle as he stroked Ben's hair, and he was patient. He waited for Ben to finish, waited to see why Ben was really here.

_I’m here because you’re the only one that wants me._

Hux opened his eyes slowly. Right. The mind reading. The mind _speaking_. Hux had forgotten how hard it was to hide anything from Ben. Still, he snorted in derision, and answered.

“I’m sure I’m not. You’re a celebrity, Ben. There are plenty of places for you to go.”

Ben had slumped further down the floor, was now almost laying facedown in Hux’s lap, his hands around Hux’s waist. He rolled his face into Hux’s thigh, and Hux kept his fingers in Ben’s hair.

_I’m a celebrity because people think I’m a Jedi. They want my powers._

“What makes you think I don’t want your powers?”

 _You want me_.

“You’re right. I think you’re attractive, _and_  I want your powers. There are so few of us in the galaxy.”

When Ben didn’t respond, Hux was glad, because that was perhaps the wrong thing to say in the moment, after Ben had gone through all the trouble of coming here. Another thought occurred to him, and he wrinkled his nose.

“Did you really kill your uncle?”

His hands tightened around Hux’s waist, and he sat up, his face a mess of tears, snot, bruises, and red blotches. Hux should have been disgusted. He wasn’t, and he found that fact vaguely alarming. He should have been angry, should have made Ben-

Ben _rejected_  him, he reminded himself. He’d made Hux miserable for an entire year. Hux wiped a smear of dirt from Ben’s cheek. He hadn't shaved, and his stubble was rough under Hux's thumb.

Ben closed his eyes and answered Hux’s question. “No. He’s still alive. I can feel it.” The rage began needling into Hux’s skull again, pinpricks against his own thoughts. Before he could let Ben’s mood shift again, and his own along with it, he stood, offering Ben a hand. Ben looked at it, blinking, then back up at Hux, distrustfully. He eventually took it, standing, and Hux led him into the small private ‘fresher.

Ben was here. In his room, on this First Order base.

He didn’t know what to say to Ben, didn’t know what was between them. Uncharacteristically, Hux could not see the way forward, because there was... too much. His own anger, his plans for Ben, whatever Ben's real purpose was here. But Ben had come, had used the crystal to find Hux, and he was a mess. Cleaning him was a good first step, a way to test the intimacy between them.

If Ben read any of this in Hux’s thoughts, he gave no indication. His hand was cold and calloused in Hux’s own as he led Ben through the doorway into his own private ‘fresher. Ben didn’t respond when they stopped, didn’t respond when Hux turned to face him. So Hux began undressing him. He unfastened Ben’s belt, largely undamaged and containing the holster for his new, awful lightsaber.

As Hux leaned across to set the belt on the sink, Ben responded. “Awful.”

Hux didn't meet Ben’s eyes as he began to peel back the layers of robe, which were seared into Ben’s skin, torn and sodden, difficult to remove. “Did you re-assemble it to be more intimidating?”

Ben made a derisive noise that made Hux look quickly at his disinterested face, and then away. “The blade’s unfocused. I had to vent it.”

Hux’s hands paused. Unfocused. Because he’d given Hux the focusing crystal. The lack had turned it into that, into something that wasn’t suited to Ben Solo.

It was awful. But it was fierce. Hux thought about it in Ben’s hand in that hangar, and what it had done to those Stormtroopers. He’d obviously used it at the Jedi Academy as well. Not to kill his uncle, perhaps, but the other students. Such things were not unknown to Hux, but he knew well enough that it wasn’t like that at the Jedi Academy, where they sat and debated the merit of their lessons together.

He could tell Ben was reading his thoughts, because he began to see images of Ben fighting the other students, all who appeared to be younger than Ben. Certainly less intimidating. Ben’s fist started to clench and unclench at his sides, and his breath came faster through his nose.

Hux said the only thing that came to him, to interrupt Ben’s thoughts. “I consented to the murder of my father. This year.”

He didn’t look into Ben’s face when he said it, though he felt his muscles relax and his posture shift as he unwrapped what was left of Ben’s sleeping robe, noting clinically that Ben still didn’t wear underwear. His sense of Ben’s thoughts was cut off suddenly, replaced by a kind of bland monitoring presence in the back of his mind. He looked into Ben’s face when Ben was naked and he began to undo his own belt.

“That’s a secret, by the way.” He thought of the dry, dessicated wink from the late Major Kan. “Don’t tell anybody.”

The corners of Ben’s mouth twitched, though he did not smile. Hux supposed it wasn’t a joke. He turned from Ben as he continued to strip out of his pants and undershirt, still damp from Ben’s tears.

“Why?”

This was a fair question, and not one Hux was sure he had the words to answer, not even in this candid moment. He thought about it, stripping fully naked and turning back to Ben, letting their gazes lock. Ben was more relaxed, and most of the awkwardness between them was gone, though the intimacy of their first meeting had not replaced it. He reached out and put a hand to Ben’s waist, maintaining eye contact, seeing how Ben would react to the touch. Ben didn’t, though the warmth under Hux’s hand was again a shock after so long. He’d given up his hand-to-hand courses after graduating from the cadet program, but he’d still been in close contact with the other students at the Officer’s Academy. But since starting his posting, he’d isolated himself. He hadn’t even touched another person with his gloves on. The soft skin against his own palm, after so long, was an immense shock. He told himself it was erotic, that he simply wanted Ben, which was true enough, but not in the moment. This was something else, something he pushed back down even as his mind tried to embrace it.

Instead, he guided Ben into the stall, turning on the precious water (still a novelty) and letting it run over Ben first, shivering slightly as the chilly air of the room finally reached his bare skin.

As he watched the water cascade over Ben’s dark hair, down his pale skin, dotted with the moles he had not allowed himself to think of in the past year, his mind wandered back to his confession, and Ben’s question about why he had murdered his father.

“I suppose our visions for the future did not match,” Hux explained simply, grabbing the shampoo and pouring some into his hand, beginning to work it into Ben’s hair as Ben faced him, his eyes studying his expression, but his hands hanging limply at his sides. “And I was tired of mine being dismissed. So I decided that… I was done with being mired in his past glories. An opportunity presented itself. Someone offered, someone who wanted to leave their past behind, and Brendol’s memories with it.” Hux shrugged, tilting Ben’s head back to rinse his hair. “So I took it.”

"Opportunity," Ben repeated, no inflection in his voice, and still no emotions for Hux to read. Hux grimaced, but watched him carefully for a reaction.

"It had to look accidental," he began, scrubbing harder, grimacing as he realized how it would all sound. "Well, the whole thing was a little baroque. She had a beetle that could... liquefy him from the inside out. She threw it into his uniform, and it was that easy. He spent his last hours in a tube that was meant to stop the process. It didn't. I watched it happen." The grieving, obedient son. The med staff had been baffled. Hux wondered obsessively whether Phasma had more of those, whether it would be that simple when it happened to him. Easy. A genetic thing, father and son.

Ben finally reacted, looking confused. "Liquefy him?"

"Yes, the beetle was... parasitic... I don't know. We didn't have a record of it in our system. I don't know how it worked, but it did." Apparently, that explanation satisfied Ben, because he gave a single nod of acknowledgement. Hux didn't know what about that was satisfactory. None of it satisfied Hux, and he had witnessed it.

“And it was all over, just like that?” Ben blinked at him, his expression curious, and also sad. But there was no shock, no disgust, and no revulsion. He hadn’t planned on telling Ben the truth of that, when he thought about it at all. He hadn't imagined that Ben Solo would understand. He hadn't expected Ben's acceptance, and it was somewhat awful.

“No, it wasn’t easy. There were… disagreements. Long standing ones. That lasted my entire life. I thought it would help that. In a literal sense, it did. But it… didn’t fix it.” Hux pursed his lips, reaching for the conditioner now.

Ben did not pursue the topic, likely sensing Hux’s reluctance to speak of it. Though Hux assumed that Ben could peruse his infuriating childhood anytime he wished, if Hux wouldn’t tell him. Perhaps that would be easier anyway.

“No, I wouldn’t do that,” Ben elaborated, and Hux was again vaguely annoyed at having his thoughts read so easily.

“You wouldn’t look at my memories, but you would read my thoughts?”

“It’s different. We’re not sharing those. It’s not…” Ben gestured vaguely to dismiss it, then shook his head, his expression still sad. “But you make it sound so easy. Killing your father.”

Hux arched an eyebrow, but studied Ben’s hair, pulling out the knots and tangles, avoiding his gaze again. “It’s done, and I am better off without him. He was not willing to move on from his past glories and old-fashioned ideas, so I moved on without him.”

 _I suppose I have patricide in common with your uncle,_  he thought but didn’t say, and felt the fury spike through his mind again. His hands stilled as he tried to find the misstep, but Ben’s face grew red, his expression darkened, and he simply came out with it.

“He _betrayed_  me! He didn’t… he didn’t tell me that Darth Vader was his father!”

Hux brows furrowed as he rinsed Ben’s hair again, carefully soaping a cloth to dab at his various wounds. There was a terrible burn across his thigh that still had some of the fabric from his sleeping robe singed into it. He considered his response very carefully. He needed to understand exactly how the relationship between Luke Skywalker and his nephew had turned so suddenly adversarial. He needed to know exactly how and why it affected Ben.

“Why wouldn’t he tell you that you were related to Darth Vader?” Not telling Ben made just as little sense as Luke Skywalker attempting to kill him while he slept.

He felt Ben’s fury suddenly break, replaced with despair, and it made Hux’s stomach twist. He straightened, and used the cloth to wipe more dirt from Ben’s face. His eyes were searching Hux’s eyes again, looking for his understanding. For answers, perhaps.

“I don’t know, Hux! He- I don’t-”

“Ben,” Hux admonished, turning him around to wipe his back. He knew, from the new recruits, that it was better to stop the hysterics before they started. He would get nothing from Ben unless he calmed down.

“ _What_ ,” Ben grit out, turning to glare over his shoulder. “Am I being _dramatic_? Is this too much, a bad reaction to having you- having your uncle-”

“Ben,” Hux said again, steadily, and they lapsed into silence, Hux carefully scrubbing what he could of Ben’s skin, dabbing at his wounds. His face was the worst of it, the black eye and split lip incongruous with what Hux knew of Ben. Ben’s eyebrow was split and still bleeding freely, and his eye was nearly swollen shut. He looked too much like he had lost a fight, and Hux preferred him invincible.

He thought, suddenly, about waking up with Luke Skywalker at the foot of his bed a year ago, and his motions stilled again, his mouth going dry. The reality of what Ben was trying to tell him finally hit him. That Luke Skywalker had tried to murder his nephew, that Ben Solo had sought him out across nearly the entire known galaxy using the Force and a token he’d given him that had destroyed his weapon. That they were both naked, that he’d washed and cleaned Ben because he didn’t know what else to do.

He still didn’t. He forced himself to continue ministering to Ben, feigning nonchalance. He turned off the water and got a medpack from the small first aid kit under his sink. He peeled open the single bacta patch and taped it over Ben’s eye. Ben watched him with the other, still furious. Hux discarded the wrapper from the patch, and simply looked at Ben, head to foot, watching the rivulets of water run over his bruised and cut skin.

“You said I could come here. With you.” Ben tried, as if he could sense Hux’s hesitation, as if he suddenly felt shy about barging into the base.

“And you said no,” Hux could not help snapping back. He was suddenly embarrassed by the pettiness of it, and threw a towel at Ben, stalking off into his room, climbing beneath the cold sheets of the bed he’d been forced to vacate earlier. The sheets were mussed, and stuck to his wet skin. He should get his comm and blaster out of the ‘fresher and put them next to his bed. Instead, he put his back to the fresher like a child, wishing to block out his problems.

As if it were that easy. As if Ben Solo would simply vanish, after all that. He felt the mattress dip.

“Hux, I’m… sorry.” He felt Ben position himself carefully, dragging a leg onto the bed and turning to face him. “You were right. About that. I should have. It would have-” He felt Ben’s regard wrap around him, the despair, the desperation.

And suddenly, Hux realized that, yes, Ben Solo truly felt he didn’t have anywhere to go. That’s why he’d come here. Hux rolled over, looking at Ben’s profile, lit by the weak light from the ‘fresher.

“What about your mother? Your father? Other family?”

Ben shook his head, drops of cold water falling from the tips of his hair. He hadn’t used the towel. “Luke was my only family. I’ve hardly spoken to my dad, and my mom-” He turned away, jaw clenched, fury pulsing painfully through Hux’s mind. Ben’s mood shifts were dizzying, and made worse when he spoke directly into Hux’s head.

 _She’d just excuse him, she always did, she’d make me go back to him_ -

“You don’t have to go back,” Hux sighed, sitting up, putting his face in his hands. “But you have to realize. Once you come here, you can’t leave. What you’re doing-” He gestured, and looked over Ben’s shoulder to the ‘fresher. “That you left your family and ran here.” Not to Hux. Because he didn’t have anywhere else. Hux swallowed, tried the summon the anger, and couldn’t. There was a part of him that saw it rationally, saw what a mad thing it was, to have Ben Solo working for them. It truly was an adolescent fantasy. He had to tell Ben, explain. His voice came out tight, less controlled than it should have. “You could be anything, go anywhere, and you came here.”

Ben turned away, hiding his expression, but not his sadness. Hux was nearly sick with it. “I don’t know what else to do,” he admitted, his voice coming out more choked than Hux’s had. “You had a plan for me. I need it now.”

Hux closed his eyes, clasping his hands in his lap. What he wanted was selfish, and he would use Ben as much as he could. He would figure out how to make Ben stronger, how to send him out to gain power, status, how to make the First Order bigger. He would use Ben to get the money out of the New Republic and into the rest of the galaxy. He opened his eyes again, looking at the back of Ben's head.

He would use Ben for himself, against Ben’s own mother.

He would use Ben’s body, Ben’s mind, make Ben satisfy his every urge, his every impulse.

Even he saw that there was nothing for Ben there.

He should tell Ben to go elsewhere. Escort him to a nice, quiet planet and find work for him. He should explain that Ben should not stay here, that Hux was selfish and lonely and a bad person who had starved and fought and bled for the First Order, and would stop at nothing, not even murdering his father or fellow officers.

But he didn’t need to say any of that. Ben could read his thoughts. Was definitely doing it now. Ben knew he was a bad person, that Hux had been manipulating him from the moment they met. But he’d still given Hux his focusing crystal, and come here to be with him after his idyllic celebrity life had fallen apart.

“I’ll do it.” He turned back to face Hux, expression fierce, and he grabbed Hux’s hands in his own. They were damp and still very warm, too large and too heavily calloused. Hux’s breath caught at his touch, and he looked from their hands to Ben’s face. “I’ll do anything you tell me, Hux. I’m here now. Just-” He blinked, and Hux felt… everything. Ben’s emotions in his mind were intense, he _felt_  so strongly compared to Hux. Hux didn’t understand how he lived like that.

He dropped his head, and spoke quietly, finishing his thought. “Just don’t do that to me,” Ben finished quietly. “Don’t. Don’t betray me.”

It sounded silly out loud, and Hux was flooded with Ben’s secondhand embarrassment.

Hux held his breath, the significance of the moment humming around him, making him feel almost numb. He only had to reassure him, to say yes, and Ben would be his. Ben Solo would be his, and would stay with him. Ben tilted his head up, his dark eyes glittering, boring into Hux, looking for his answer.

Hux gave it. “I would never betray the First Order. And you’re part of it now.” Hux shifted his grip and squeezed Ben’s hands, and Ben sighed, letting the intensity of all his emotions out with his breath. Not all of it - some of the hurt and confusion was bone-deep, and Hux had a vague sense of Ben playing the memory of Luke Skywalker above his bed over and over again.

He didn’t know what to say to make that go away, if anything could. So instead, he released one of Ben’s hands and slid the sheets back, pulling Ben gently into the bed with his other hand. Ben seemed hesitant, so he positioned them carefully, rolling over and stretching Ben’s arm over himself, feeling the weight of it on his side. Once Hux was facing away, Ben shifted, tangling a leg between Hux’s. His foot was cold. Hux shivered, annoyed.

“You lost weight,” Ben offered, rather inappropriately.

“Thank you,” Hux snapped. Already slight, the weight loss had made him self-conscious, and he had begun to wear a coat over his uniform, had started to order padding on his shoulders. The reason came traitorously to the front of his mind, and Hux hated himself, because he’d stopped eating when Ben had rejected him.

Ben said nothing to this, only held him tighter, and pressed his face between Hux’s shoulderblades. He felt Ben’s tears, hot against the skin of his back. He still didn’t know what to say to that, or any of it. He hoped that Ben found whatever he was looking for.

The stillness of being planetside still haunted Hux, the sounds of the various night animals and insects, coupled with the sounds of the base’s ventilation system, still not the same as the constant hum and noises of a starship. And sleeping with Ben wrapped around him was… overwhelming, after all this time.

Still, he fell asleep, and slept soundly. It had happened so rarely in the last year.

 

 

* * *

 

  
Getting Ben and the ‘knights’ off the base was more of a headache than dismantling the whole thing had been. All of the former Jedi students had fled their home with only the battle-worn clothes on their back, which were mostly destroyed. Dressing them proved nearly impossible, since their supplies had long since been removed and the only personnel left was a skeleton crew and (now slightly reduced) Trooper detail. None of them were as small as some of the students were.

Ben and Hux hadn’t spoken that morning, so Hux still didn’t know the details of whatever battle had ensued after Luke Skywalker’s betrayal. He wasn’t sure he wanted the details. The whole thing sounded absurd and nightmarish, as if someone was setting Ben up to run into Hux’s arms and the First Order.

After searching and scraping, one of Hux’s Lieutenants uncovered a stray supply crate that held cadet Trooper armor, and there was enough of it to find complete fitted sets for all the Jedi students. Hux relished the looks of disgust on their faces as they helped each other into the unfamiliar armor, could see that they weren’t at all confident about what was happening to them. They looked to Ben constantly, but Ben did nothing to reassure them. Hux was unbothered by their indignation. He would keep and take care of them, just like he had so many others before. Ben was sure, and that was what mattered.

Hux could not sense the other student’s emotions as he sensed Ben’s, though he could read their thoughts well enough from their faces. He wondered if they could read his thoughts, though how Ben had begun doing it suggested that they lacked the necessary... connection. Perhaps Ben was uniquely powerful in that way. It pleased him to think so.

Ben was harder to dress, because he was so kriffing _big_. They had Troopers that were as bulky as Ben, but none that were as tall. He was even taller than Hux, who towered over most. They had to settle for squeezing Ben into an old Lieutenant uniform Hux still had in his closet on the base, from before he’d lost weight. Ben had gained muscle and bulk in the last year, so the fit was still poor. The zipper barely came up, his arms were held stiffly in one position by the tightness through the shoulders, and he walked awkwardly, the seat of even the loose pants creeping up his ass. Hux’s extra boots were also a poor fit - even Ben’s feet were overly large, and they struggled to zip the back of the boots up Ben’s muscular calf.

Ben, who had allegedly not slept at all the night before, was clearly not in the mood for Hux’s frank appreciation. Ben always caught him when he stared, and never failed to glower at him, though Hux could tell from Ben’s monitoring presence that at least some part of him found it amusing.

Ben’s face was a bigger problem. The bacta had healed the swelling and bruising, and Hux was certain that Ben would be recognized, and that they’d run into a New Republic patrol that would steal him back.

“They’d arrest me,” Ben informed him glumly, pulling at the bottom of his tunic. It kept creeping up his torso as he followed Hux silently around the base, watching Hux go through the monotony of checking and re-checking the last of the preparations as the staff began disassembling the buildings and loading the materials onto the working transport.

“They wouldn’t arrest you. They’d assume I kidnapped you,” Hux retorted sharply, not looking up from his datapad. He was frantically crunching numbers, trying to find the resources to repair the transport Ben had damaged the night before. They needed it badly. It was all he could do to not bring it up constantly.

“I killed the other students,” Ben blurted, a wave of shame and fury washing through Hux and making him lose his train of thought. Hux's hand paused above his datapad. Ben continued. “We all did. When we tried to leave. They thought I- killed Luke. They couldn’t sense him like I could. And they tried to stop us.”

Hux looked up to see Ben affecting a surly expression and tense posture (or what Hux assumed was tense posture, taking into account the tight uniform). Ben’s thoughts betrayed him, however - Hux sensed that he saw his future as a gaping, yawning void that his life spent on self-reflection in the Force had not prepared him for.

“They tried to stop you?” Hux asked, raising an eyebrow, playing it off as if it were nothing, trying to dismiss Ben’s fear. So intense. Ben _felt_ , and Hux needed him calmer to free his own thoughts from the mess of Ben’s.

“They… yeah. They fought me. Because of Luke.”

Hux’s attention dropped back to his datapad dismissively. “Then they weren’t very smart students, were they?”

It was a bad joke, monstrous in the face of Ben’s concern. But Ben’s shock quelled the rest of his thoughts, which is what Hux wanted.

“Forget it, Ben. It can’t be any different. It’s in the past, and you should leave it. Your life in the First Order starts today.”

Somehow, that brought Ben peace, and a kind of possessive mania. Hux frowned at his datapad, not sure what to make of that.

They got the second transport fixed, and Hux sent both away, along with the personnel. He sent the Officers and a dozen Stormtroopers in his own shuttle, and went with Ben and the ‘knights’ in the shuttle that Ben had arrived in, knowing his own private security clearance was the only thing that would get it past First Order defenses.

He commed ahead to announce himself and guests, and was granted permission to dock with the _Supremacy_ , the excessively large flagship that their new 'Supreme Leader' Snoke had commissioned with whatever money he had brought with him. Hux was baffled by its size - it was larger than their entire current fleet combined, and Hux had not believed in it, or conceived of its true size, when the rumors of its conception had begun three years before. He also couldn’t imagine the amount of money it had taken to research and build it. It curdled in his stomach as he took in the size of it, but he dismissed the concern. The Order didn’t waste money. It had been officially completed while Hux had been stationed on Laymar, and this was the first he’d seen of it since the earliest stages of construction.

Even Ben was impressed by its size. It housed as much manufacturing as several planetside or orbital operations, and was mobile and more secure. They even fabricated TIEs and small transports aboard. It took a massive amount of supplies, material, and fuel to power, almost enough not to be worth it. But it was big, and impressive, and Hux appreciated the gesture, could see the wisdom in it once its various parts began moving.

He requested an audience with Supreme Leader Snoke, and waited aboard for clearance and a date, anticipating at least a week of wait time. He’d never met the 'Supreme Leader,' the fabled savior of the Order. He was said to have approached them as a significant investor several years ago, and had since spent enough credits to have sway in High Command. The ridiculous title was recent. But he had made this ship, and had given them much guidance and financial backing. Few had actually met him, and Hux heard that he mostly left those in charge to their own devices. Now that the 'Supreme Leader’s' massive ship was complete, and Hux had ended his posting here, he thought it worthwhile to introduce himself and Ben.

While they waited, he had Ben help him with Trooper training SIMs, giving advice and opinions on the drills and weapons training as he ran through each of Hux’s programs. His ‘knights’ began the new recruit stages of Trooper cadet training, which both they and Ben seemed agreeable to. Hux could think of nothing else to do with them, and Ben liked Hux's program enough to make the decision himself. Ben explained it to the others as a test of their physical abilities, and the students consented enthusiastically. Hux guessed that they, like Ben, had been more gifted pupils in the physical Jedi arts, which may have been lacking in Luke Skywalker’s program.

Or not, Hux supposed. Ben and his knights had beaten Luke Skywalker, hero of the Rebellion and killer of Darth Vader, and bested the other students in combat. They must have learned _something_  there. Hux left them to the conditioning and the rudiments of the program, focusing on Ben and leaving the evaluation of the ‘knights’ until after his meeting with Snoke.

He’d given Ben a Major's uniform to match his own when they came aboard, one that fit him. It looked nearly as fetching as the ill-fitting one, and Hux supposed Ben could have whatever rank Hux did. He certainly deserved some recognition. But not too much. Hux also found a helmet to hide Ben face. A black one, just an old pilot’s helmet. It looked ridiculous with the uniform, but Hux did not want any of the tens of thousands of residents aboard the _Supremacy_  to recognize Ben Solo. It was a shame to hide his face, but there was also something thrilling about the idea that Hux would be the only one to see it.

Ben seemed to like the new helmet and mask, as much as he seemed to like anything. Which wasn't much. Hux was well aware that Ben wasn’t happy, but there wasn’t much to offer him except the familiar. Ben lost himself in the physical training, and Hux allowed him the freedom to spar with the more experienced Troopers as one week stretched into two, then three. More than the sims, the sparring focused Ben, and Hux recognized the peace he’d seen during Ben’s weapon demonstration back in Republic City.

The fights were, paradoxically, a calm in the storm of his constant swirling emotions. His feelings were still irrevocably tangled with Hux’s, and Hux daily felt his sadness, disappointment, despair, and the core of furious betrayal he carried around with him. When it overwhelmed Ben, he tended to take it out on the Troopers, and not even their superior training slowed him down. Hux had been forced to intervene more than once, stepping in and stopping Ben when he was lost to his fury.

When Ben couldn't be stopped, Hux dismissed the rest of the room and watched as Ben ignited the hissing, unstable lightsaber he was never without and laid waste to the equipment. Hux always stood his ground, waiting to see if Ben would hurt him, blame him for all of it. Ben never did.

Hux saw the pattern quickly. Ben would destroy the equipment, the walls, and the door, then collapse into the middle of the room. The helmet was always on, and his expression was always hidden, but his emotions pounded inside Hux’s skull, reverberating inside the limits of his own physical control.

After the fourth time, Hux asked him archly if there was a better way to release his anger.

The fifth time, when Ben’s lightsaber ignited and Hux couldn’t bear to see the waste of a room again, confident that Ben would not injure him, he removed Ben’s helmet and threw it. And that was all it took to re-kindle their physical relationship, which had lied stagnant between them since Ben’s return. They had shared a bed every night, but Ben’s mental state, stretched thickly between the two of them, had effectively killed any thoughts of physical intimacy, though Hux began to ache for it in the moments when he had his thoughts to himself.

Anger, and Ben’s frustration, had done it more effectively than any comfort that Hux could have offered him. The two of them clawed and rutted against each other, tearing at their uniforms without bothering to remove them, their teeth tearing at lips, tongues in each other’s mouths. Hux was thrown roughly against the sim console and Ben fell on top of him, rubbing their hard cocks together frantically through the fabric of their uniform pants, the metal of the console squeaking ominously under Hux’s ass.

It had been savage and angry, Ben’s anger and Hux’s fury twisting through them both, but the power of the emotions had carried Hux away, made him ache all over, made his dick hard and his body frantic for release. When it came, it was too fast, and it felt as if everything inside him escaped with it as he came inside his uniform pants. It should have been disgusting, but it was one of the most intense experiences of Hux’s life, and he kept the footage of it on his personal comm afterwards.

He’d slapped Ben after they’d both caught their breaths, and told him that they would use their room next time. The next time had been only hours later, after Hux’s training reviews ended and they had both eaten. When they came together, it was more like it had been a year ago, a feeling of connection, completeness. Their emotions were equal, and they were both caught up in each other and aching for it.

Hux couldn’t wait, his mouth around Ben’s cock almost as soon as his pants were down, before Ben was even fully hard. He savored the taste of Ben, the texture of his come, licked it all from his lips as Ben pulsed and came in his mouth. He soothed Ben when he grew frustrated that it had happened so fast, lamenting the fact he couldn't fuck Hux. Hux had him lie back, told him to relax, that they weren't done yet.

Hux took the time to open Ben slowly, to feel his big thigh flex below his hand, to feel Ben clench around his fingers. He watched Ben grow red, felt his skin heat below his palms. Hux kissed him up his stomach and chest, enjoying the sensation of having Ben Solo beneath him, how much Ben wanted this, how much Hux wanted it. How Ben felt, inside and out. It was almost too much even before he pushed himself in. He didn’t bother to hide how much he enjoyed it, how _good_  Ben felt around his cock. He buried his face in Ben’s neck and went as slowly as possible, willing Ben to be happy.

When they had finished, Hux hadn’t pulled himself off Ben, had left his face and cock buried, unwilling to be the one to end it. Ben had rolled out from underneath him, cleaned both of them up. He told Hux he was happy. He smiled. Hux smiled back. Ben’s smile was genuine, but Hux knew it was temporary, would not even last to the morning. 

It hadn't. Hux reminded himself that Ben hadn't come here to be happy. If Ben could be happy with Hux, he would have been here over a year ago.

Three days later, Hux received a notification that his meeting with the Supreme Leader would take place within the hour. They barely had enough time to make their way across the massive ship, catching the multiple transports to Snoke's receiving rooms. Hux hurriedly ended his training exercises and took Ben with him, baffled by the short notice. He hadn’t been expecting to drop everything and appear when summoned. It boded ill.

Ben was more than annoyed to have his training interrupted, but Ben’s face was hidden, and Hux could mask his own emotions well enough. He made sure they were both neat, well-presented, and following perfect protocol when he entered Snoke’s chamber.

He wasn’t sure what to expect. He hadn’t expected an actual  _throne_  with a giant humanoid alien on it. There were no holos of Snoke, which Hux had thought was an excellent power move. Now he wasn’t so sure. The majority of the Order would balk if they knew their ‘Supreme Leader’ was an alien. Snoke didn’t do much to improve his own first impression, either. He wore a garish gold robe that was unlike anything Hux had seen. His posture was lazy and unconcerned. He’d had some sort of accident that had never had healed or corrected, and it appeared that half his head was missing, his teeth and piercing blue eyes standing out starkly in his pale face. The scarring seemed to paralyze his features, and Hux was unable to read his expression as his blue eyes fixed first on him, then lingered on Ben. Hux's stomach clenched.

He also hadn’t expected the room to be draped in tacky red tapestries, or for Snoke to be flanked by a ridiculous mockery of the Emperor’s Red Guards, or whoever the taller draped purple entities were supposed to be in the corner. More aliens?

This was not the First Order. Hux was uneasy as he knelt obediently the appropriate distance from Snoke’s throne.

“Supreme Leader Snoke,” He began, Ben kneeling beside him and mimicking his posture. The Red Guard closed in around them, and Hux realized that he’d forgotten to stipulate the introduction of Ben’s knights alongside them. Hux would have given them black Stormtrooper armor, and they could have stood behind them. They were small, but it would have been a statement, perhaps an important one. But Ben could make enough of an impression if it came to that, and Hux was confident in his own place in the Order. Snoke couldn’t take it from him.

“I am Major Hux, son of the late General Brendol Hux, who I believe you were acquainted with. It is an honor to finally meet you, sir. My apologies for the late introduction, I was stationed away from the fleet, in the Laymar training facility.” Those were all the right words, and Hux said them with appropriate deference, though the insincerity sat heavily in the air around them. Something about Snoke, his money and his big ship and his absurd _room_ , set off every fight instinct Hux possessed. “May I present Ben Solo, former Jedi pupil. He wishes to be an ally to the First Order.”

Ben, the son of one of the most famous politicians in the galaxy, remembered his manners. “It is my pleasure to meet you, Supreme Leader Snoke.”

Hux didn’t know what to expect of this meeting, other than the perfunctory introductions. He was prepared to outline his immediate plans for the Trooper training program and the conditioning protocols. If asked, he could have spoken of a ten-year plan, ambitions for the Order as a whole and where he saw himself in it. He had been prepared to praise Ben Solo and discuss his powers and everything Hux would do with Ben for the Order.

He was not expecting Snoke to laugh uproariously after they finished their introductions.

“Look at what Brendol’s little bastard has found,” Snoke stated in a rich, Republican-accented voice. “A lost soul.”

At this, both he and Ben raised their heads, shock resonating between them. Snoke’s blue gaze was fixed on Ben, and he hadn’t moved from his slouch, his head propped in one hand, elbow on the arm of the throne. Casually, he raised his other hand, long fingers extended, and Hux jerked when he saw Ben’s lightsaber lift up and away from his belt, floating through the air between them.

“Hey-” Ben began, standing, reacting faster than Hux. Before Hux could fully wrap his thoughts around the implications of _Ben wasn’t the one doing that_ , Ben gasped, and he stumbled back to the floor, his knees hitting the surface with a cracking sound. Shocked, Hux turned back to Snoke, his brows drawing together, realization hitting him.

“Oh yes, I studied the Force, I just don’t advertise like young _Solo_.” Snoke pronounced Ben’s name with a twist of the mouth that made it sound distasteful. He felt Ben’s fury, sudden and overwhelming, and his own twined with it.

The lightsaber, floating a lazy path across the distance between them, reached Snoke’s outstretched palm. He closed his fingers around it and brought it to his face, studying it. He smirked, spinning it casually between his fingers before flipping it upright and activating it. The blade sputtered loudly to life, extending toward the two of them. Snoke held it steady as the energy kicked back and the quillions flared to life around his hand. Snoke chuckled, spinning it in the air once before deactivating it.

“It’s lost the focusing crystal.” He straightened and stood, long body unfolding and the gold robe shimmering in the strange light of the room as he took the steps down from his throne. “A reflection of its bearer.”

He stopped only a meter in front of them. Ben was still angry enough that Hux was having trouble controlling his own emotions. Ben’s face was hidden. Hux bent his own head down, hiding his expression. Snoke continued. “Tell me, Ben _Solo_ , what was your biggest weakness in Jedi school?”

”My focus. I did not have inner focus.” Hux realized that Ben was being restrained by Snoke somehow, that his stillness was not voluntary. Hux’s stomach tightened. Snoke was overpowering Ben. That was… this was not going _well_.

“Ah. No peace. And tell me. How did you find it for yourself?”

Ben raised his head, and Hux could feel his strain, how he fought every twitch of muscle against Snoke. “In combat. Sword training.”

“Yes. And Skywalker didn’t approve, did he?”

Ben looked down again, hate and fury and self-loathing roiling, nearly choking Hux. “He said it was a path to the dark.”

“And here you are.” Snoke dropped the saber in front of him. It clanged loudly as it hit the floor. “You’ve found your way to my feet. Do you know what I am?”

“Sith,” Ben gritted out, and Snoke reached out, his long fingers finding the catches at the bottom of Ben’s helmet. Hux dare not look up, dare not risk Snoke seeing his reaction, because he could not hide his shudder or his sense of revulsion as the long fingers brushed Ben’s neck, pulled the helmet away, revealed the anger Ben had not been schooled to hide.

Ben made a noise of protest, and Hux jerked his head up and watched Snoke straighten, extend a palm lazily. An invisible Force bend Ben Solo forward, force him facedown on the floor. The durasteel panels groaned beneath them, and Hux could sense Ben pushing back, struggling to master whatever Force Snoke was using against him. He also felt Ben slip slowly out of his mind, the fight with Snoke taking all his energy. The loss was sickening. He shifted, but didn’t dare move or intervene. If Ben could not defeat Snoke, what was Hux?

“Sith.” Snoke made a dry, derisive noise that sounded unnatural, either because he was injured or because hsi vocalizations were not quite human. “Nothing so… common as that. Or organized.” Snoke turned away, and Ben suddenly gasped, the pressure in the air gone at once. Snoke walked casually back to his throne, gold robe swirling around him, sitting down and steepling his fingers under his chin.

“I am merely an acolyte of the Dark Side of the Force. I have explored it, and twisted it to my own uses. Do you doubt me?”

When Ben didn’t answer, Hux felt the pressure again. Ben doubled over, gasping as he was pressed back against the ground.

“Answer,” Snoke barked sharply, raising his voice for the first time. It wouldn’t be threatening, except for the Force that Hux could feel prickle his skin and turn his blood cold. He watched Ben, suddenly desperate for his overwhelming emotions, to live this awful thing with him.

“No,” Ben gasped, and Hux couldn't help but reach a hand out to help.

He felt himself slammed into the floor, the breath rushing from his lungs with a weak cry.

“I’ll pretend you didn’t, little Armitage, because you’ve given me a great gift today.” The pressure disappeared. Hux couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Could only gasp weakly as he was splayed out against the floor.

Snoke continued, ignoring their pain. “Armitage brought you here because it benefited him. I should have known he was capable of sounding out such an ally. I would have sent him out to fetch you a long time ago, telling him what a _good boy_  he was. Armitage would destroy entire worlds, with the correct… _incentive_.”

Hux rolled his head to the side, pushing his arms up underneath himself and managing a kneeling position. Snoke watched him, then extended his hand once again, palm downward, rotating his wrist one hundred eighty degrees and curling his fingers into a fist. Ben was levitated, pulled through the air with his boots dragging against the floor to Snoke’s throne. Hux cried out, but Snoke looked sharply at him, gesturing dismissively with the other hand. Hux was driven to the floor again before his protest was fully out, the breath crushed from him. Black spots danced at the edge of his vision, and he was powerless to stop it. Any of it.

“I sense, _Ben Solo_ , that your little disagreement with Skywalker left you… angry. So angry. Am I correct?”

Hux couldn’t see anything, couldn’t move his head to look, could barely breathe, but he heard Ben struggling, grunting. Then groaning in pain.

“You’ll learn to answer me eventually. If only I didn't have to waste the time and energy to teach you. If you embrace your anger, if you hate me enough, you’d be… _exceptional_.” Snoke’s voice went deep on the last word, nearly reverent. He paused, letting that sink in. “Your hatred is a powerful thing. As is your connection to the Force. You do feel everything so deeply.” Snoke’s voice got lighter, and Hux heard Ben hit the floor. “If only you’d come to me sooner. Imagine all the time you wasted, listening to your uncle tell you to be calm.”

Suddenly, the pressure around Hux released, and he gasped, reflexively pushing himself off the floor. Drool trickled from the corner of his mouth as he tried to get his breath, tried to summon the right words to say, tried to stop this from happening.

He felt a trace of Ben’s presence, Ben’s panic, and suddenly, a tearing sensation in his mind.

“None of that. Maybe once you’ve both been _good boys_.”

Hux looked up at that, still on his hands and knees, and saw Snoke’s sharp blue eyes on Ben. Both his hands were clutching his throat, and Hux was alarmed. Was Snoke suffocating him? Was he choking him as Vader had been rumored to do?

“You belong to me now, Ben, not him. Armitage is nothing. He only has what I allow him to have.” Snoke waved a hand dismissively. “This is the life you’ve chosen, and you’ll either be mine or die.”

Ben groaned, and Snoke pushed him flat against the floor.

Hux looked around to the Red Guards, who stood, doing nothing. It suddenly occurred to Hux to wonder what else they’d seen, what other violations. What else did Snoke do in this massive red chamber, with his hidden Force powers?

He could use the _Force_. There hadn’t been even the breath of a rumor of that. Snoke had hidden it. Snoke had hidden everything, behind the facade of a withered old humanoid alien. High Command had taken his credits and said the right things, and Snoke had worked his way in like a parasite. As if he had been waiting for this exact moment to happen.

He was Force sensitive. He was stronger than Ben. He was taking Ben. There was nothing Hux could do about it. Hux couldn’t even stand up unless Snoke allowed it.

“You can go now, Armitage,” Snoke said absently, waving his hand dismissively, still staring at Ben, pressed face down into the floor at the foot of his throne. “Go away, go away. Do whatever it is that you do for your handfuls of power. Watch your back.”

Hux opened his mouth, reached a gloved hand out. He couldn’t leave without Ben.

But he was no longer allowed in Snoke's presence. Hux was pushed from the room by a violent shove of invisible Force, back into the hallway, the doors slamming after him as he collided forcefully with the wall of the hallway, sliding down.

He blinked, willing the pain away, willing his vision clear. He’d lost his command cap at some point, and his hair had come loose. It was falling in his eyes. Ben had fallen asleep while running his fingers through it last night. Ben would not be in Hux’s bed tonight.

Because Hux had brought Ben to Snoke.

He put his face in his hands, telling himself it wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t have known. He hadn’t just given Ben to a monster.

Ben had been taken. Snoke would have found him eventually. Ben had come here himself. He’d told Hux no when Hux asked, and then made the decision himself. It was Ben’s path, Ben could figure it out himself.

It was just like Officer’s Training, in a way. He would either figure it out or die, and Hux could relate to that. The strong survived. Ben was strong. Snoke had said that if Ben was angry enough, he would overcome. And he would certainly be angry.

_Don’t betray me._

Of all the awful things that Hux had done without thought in his life, he felt this one keenly. This was the worst, a violation of trust, something that had been given so tentatively. Something that Hux had treasured, in a life where there weren’t very many things to hold close.

No. Hux had given Ben his trust too. And what had Ben done with Hux’s trust? Hux had given Ben-

It wasn’t the same thing, and Hux knew it.

He loathed to think what Ben would do to him, once he’d been released. If he ever was.


	14. Part Three: Laüstic - Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild warning for a throwaway reference to spice and death stick use by a secondary character (an important one, you'll know who halfway through). If you don't want to see it, skip to the next scene break when Hux begins talking to the Falleen.

After Phasma had killed his father, Hux had discovered that Brendol possessed a small fortune that he kept in a personal account. Presumably this was a decision made by a man who had seen an Empire fall and had struggled through dire circumstances to continue its legacy. It was pragmatic in a way that Hux understood, even if such personal wealth was a betrayal of the Order. Hux had used the credits to fund the construction of a Star Destroyer that he had named _Vigilance_.

This version of Brendol Hux still hoarded emergency credits, which Hux thought was especially canny in this iteration of the Order. Brendol had ten more years to acquire them this time, and his fortune was very nearly treasonous. Hux could only assume that Brendol had been planning to flee in the near future. He took great pleasure in using it for his own desertion, hacking his father’s account through the weak First Order security and shifting the credits to a much more secure account of his own.

He spared a thought for Brendol’s beloved yacht, a chrome monstrosity allegedly belonging to Sheev Palpatine himself. Brendol had acquired it in exile and likely still had it. It was a tempting target, and would break his father further. But an ostentatious luxury vessel would be more conspicuous than the small black transport he had stolen, so he left without acquiring it.

Fully satisfied with his resources and course of action, he set the autopilot on a course for Hosnian Prime, Republic City, then began his holonet research on Ben Solo.

Once again, Ben Solo had disappeared from steady holonet coverage around 22 ABY. Similar to the first time Hux had woken up in this nightmare, there was no obvious scandal or break with the public. He had simply disappeared. No more goodwill trips, no more Jedi demonstrations, no more interviews or appearances in Republic City.

Hux was uneasy. He wanted the powerful Senator he’d walked away from last time, unable to convince. That had been Kylo Ren. The man who had been hospitalized, tortured by visions of a life he did not lead, had been Ren as well, but one who had been set back.  Hux was still haunted by him.  Their life together not existing was difficult on Hux too, and he realized that he must appear similar to that Ren to anyone observing him before and after he... woke up, so to speak.  But Ren had been held captive, and had lived for years believing that Hux would come for him.  And when he had, they'd gone to Ventu, and Hux had... disappeared.

He hadn't.  He'd simply... left a different version of himself, one that would take care of Ren.  He hadn't left Ren behind.  He would never do that.

The research was painfully slow with only his left hand. It took hours to exhaust the resources available publicly on the holonet. Once he was certain he would find no more, he laid back and closed his eyes, debating a course of action.

Both the other attempts to ally himself with Ben Solo had been hasty. Last time, he had let his temper get the better of him. Ren had all but invited him to stay with him. Hux should have, and Hux would have eventually won him to his side. He could convince Ren of anything, eventually.

If Ren was hospitalized again, they could simply take time. Hux had the funds to get him away from Hosnian Prime, find somewhere else for them both to recover. Hux could find a better replacement for the terrible cybernetic limb he had, and Ren could begin his training. Ren was a master, though it might still take years for him to feel confident.

But the alternative was…

Either his father’s First Order, or… going back and starting over again. He opened his eyes. He resolved not to start over on Ventu again. Each time, he found the Order in worse condition. This time he would simply take it back and make it what it should be.

A stray thought occurred to him. _Snoke_. He hadn’t bothered to ask after Snoke this time, had assumed he didn’t have access to the Supreme Leader. He tried a quick search through the First Order network, but no record existed. It might not. There was certainly no sign of Snoke’s credits.

Did Snoke not find the Order this time? Did he exist at all? Was he elsewhere, preying on Ren?

Hux winced as his right hand twitched. If Snoke had met Ren some other way, Hux wasn’t there for Ren to come back to after his training sessions, though he’d done a poor job of that since they’d begun Starkiller. Hux wasn’t there to motivate Ren, to push him and promise him it would be worth it, that the galaxy would be theirs.

How would Ren survive that?

He dismissed it. It was unlikely. Still, his right arm ached as he stood and left the cockpit, retiring to one of the small private berths on the transport. Remaining in the cockpit would not make him arrive faster.

 

 

* * *

 

  
Nearly a day later, Hux had changed into a standard black flight suit and watched as Hosnian Prime loomed in his viewport, its continents and clouds standing out in swirls of color. The large capital city, the gaudy architecture and void of natural features, was visible even from space. He sneered, watching confirmation and scans ping on his comm as his ship was checked and approved for inter-atmospheric travel.

As he watched the heat of re-entry burn against the shields, he allowed himself to think of Starkiller.

He didn’t often. It had been humiliating, the biggest personal loss that Hux had ever experienced. It shook him to be undermined in such a way, to have so few beings take nearly everything from him so effectively. Hux rarely acknowledged that one of his flaws was over-confidence, and when it was shaken, he didn’t react well. Starkiller had been a blow, in that way.

But it had also been a massive loss of resources and life. They’d lost nearly twelve thousand bodies planetside, most of them specialized personnel that would take years to recruit, train and replace. Scientists, engineers, weapons specialists, tactical heads. Their best pilots and soldiers had all been stationed there. All of them were dead. It wasn’t the billions that were lost when they’d destroyed the entire Hosnian system, but it was still most of the best and brightest in the Order, all of the young officers and Troopers that Hux had favored. He had designed training programs and career paths for the majority of them himself. To say that he had not taken their losses well was an understatement. Their deaths also meant that the control of the Order that Hux had been engineering through personnel loyalty and superior resources had slipped away, leaving the older ex-Imperial faction to breath down his neck again.

They had invested a lot of money, too. Billions of credits. Trillions, terraforming the planet. The thought of such a waste, amounts that Hux had struggled to authorize despite the need, still made him nearly physically ill.

There was also his personal reaction. He’d been terrified as he’d never had before. Starkiller _couldn’t_  be beaten, and he’d lost himself as the base crumbled around him. His confidence had left him, and he’d had nearly nothing that motivated him to leave the imploding planet, until reports came back that Kylo Ren was missing. Had Ren been standing next to him resigned to his fate, Hux wouldn’t have done a thing. But Ren had been lost, and Hux hadn’t sensed him reaching out aside from the near-paralyzing anguish when he’d killed Han Solo.

No, the idea of Ren somewhere on the planet trapped, injured, unable to escape and terrified of being forgotten had sent Hux out in a transport to trace him with the beacon he’d put on Ren. It wasn’t the Force, but it had worked.

He frequently blamed Ren for the collapse of Starkiller. It was unfair, but it was just something that came out when he thought of Ren, so invincible, laying there in the snow looking dead, their connection still and silent between them.

They had both been affected by it. But Hux moreso than Ren. Hux had… not acted well after that.

Hux buried his face in his hand and refused to look out the port as Republic City came into view. All of those bad things wrapped up in Starkiller had been in aid of wiping this place out of existence, and yet here it stood, with its awful over-indulgences and its shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, its tacky architecture and mockery of political aid.

So he resolved to make this his last visit. He would retrieve Ren and never come back. He wouldn’t destroy it again, couldn’t. Not with the memories of how awful the whole thing had been still haunting him, and the phantom brushes of all those shoulders against his.

When he landed, he paid the docking fee and went through the business of finding a transport over to the med center that Ren had been staying at the first time. He wore the flight suit, hoping he’d stand out less and look more like service personnel. The bright colors of the wardrobes in New Republic space still overwhelmed him, surrounding him in the spaceport, on the streets, through the windows of the airborne transports.

He walked through the doors of the med center with confidence, though his steps slowed as he took in the busy lobby, with beings both human and nonhuman lining rows of seats. Other beings in uniforms bustled among the aisles, holding datapads and conversing with those in what passed for casual attire. The room appeared to be a hub, with brightly-lit hallways funneling personnel and visitors to and from the large holding area. The walls between the hallways were lined with reception windows, all with queues leading up to calm-looking beings in uniforms behind the glass, speaking in low voices to the patients, or whoever they were.

It was easy to forget how overwhelming the New Republic was, especially when Hux had to constantly remind himself to keep moving, not to stare, not to balk, not to get distracted. It was just… the sheer number of beings moving about, with no order or rank at all. A Lamproid brushed past him on the way out the door, and a family of humans passed him from behind, walking around him when he slowed to a stop, frozen in indecision.

He didn’t know which window to approach, and the queues precluded his walking up to one and demanding service. He weighed his options. Ultimately, he decided it would be better to blend in as much as possible. He chose a queue and waited, hating how foreign it felt.

“I need to see Ben Solo,” he said perfunctorily, making it an order when he reached the window. He gripped the edges of the stone counter, at a loss as to what to do with his hands. Pain jolted through his right hand, clearing his head, and it whirred and jerked as he lowered the cybernetic to his side again.

“A visitor,” the receptionist, a Givin said kindly, their soft pink uniform mitigating the unsettling skull-like features of their face. Why the hospital thought this type of alien would be comforting to the nearly half-human clientele, Hux wasn’t sure. The Givin’s Republic accent also made him suddenly self-conscious of his own Outer Rim accent, knowing it was unusual here and would mark him as an outsider.

“Of course,” the Givin continued. “I’ll just see what Solo’s status is, how many visitors he’s allowed.”

“He’ll want to see me,” Hux returned sharply, not wanting the opportunity to slip through his fingers due to some bureaucratic loophole. He cursed to himself when the clerk gave him a long-suffering stare. _Patience_. Take it slow. He reminded himself to simply follow whatever orders this New Republic hospital issued. He could do that.

“I’m sure he will. All our patients benefit from a visit. But some of them are extremely restricted. You can understand,” they returned, and Hux masked his sneer.

They tapped at their datapad a few times, asking Hux how to spell Ben’s name in both High Galactic and Aurebesh. He felt like a fool for not knowing the High Galactic, though the clerk gave him a kind look and reassured him that the Aurebesh would translate easily enough.

Hux heard an annoyed exhalation behind him, and turned to see a family of Rodians waiting impatiently behind him, dressed in Republican finery. One kept his eyes on Hux as he turned to the other and spoke in some sort of unintelligible Bocce or Huttese. They had heard that he couldn’t spell in High Galactic. Did they think of him as rimmer trash here? He had forgotten about the High Galactic, had never bothered to learn. It was the language of the Republic, and he didn’t think-

“I’m sorry, Ben Solo isn’t a patient at this hospital,” the Givin said, glancing up at him with hollow, hard-to-read eyes.

“I’m… sure he is,” Hux said slowly, his left hand sliding off the counter. “Can you look again?” Then, “He used to be quite famous. You know him, don’t you? The Jedi?”

“Mmmm,” the clerk replied, a neutral answer. “I know Luke Skywalker, but that’s just because of the Princess-” They drifted off, then shook their head, glancing at him again. “No, I’m sure, he’s not here.”

“He has to be. Look one more time.” He paused, and his hand returned to grip the counter. “Check under ‘Kylo Ren’ as well. He might be here under that name.”

He spelled it for them, and they shook their head again. “No, I’m certain.” The Givin’s tone had turned from apologetic to pitying, though their face remained haunting and alien. Hux wanted to strike them, not sure what his expression must look like to earn him _pity_.

“Tell you what,” the Givin stated slowly. “I can tell you’re not from around here, and from the way you dressed, you probably came a long way-”

“Yes,” Hux answered quickly, nodding his head once. “Yes, I did, I need to see Ben-”

“I know,” they said slowly, patiently, so patiently. “And I’m not really supposed to do this, but I’ll search the city for you, sweetheart. You probably just have the wrong hospital.”

Hux wanted to execute the alien for calling him _sweetheart_ , and he wanted to destroy the entire building and everything about it. This was the correct hospital. It was the only hospital he knew. Still, he’d have to hire a slicer to get the kind of access this clerk was offering. He stood and waited several minutes, the Rodians behind him coughing indiscreetly and muttering in the other language. Hux’s temper was rising. He needed to get out of here.

“No, I’m sorry,” the Givin finally said, their gaze moving up from their datapad. “Ben isn’t in any hospital in the city.”

“Did you try Kylo-”

“Yes,” they answered, shaking their head. “I did try Kylo Ren. I’m sorry, your friend isn’t here. Do you want to try the police department? Do you need help?”

Hux rested his forehead against the back of his left hand where it gripped the counter, hating what he looked like: some desperate, one-armed rimmer that didn’t understand how the city worked.

His head began buzzing again as he turned away from the counter without a word and pushed through the crowd (touching so many beings) to get out into the open air again, to leave the miserable hospital lobby behind. The air that was not the stale, recycled air of a ship, but blew against his face and was warm and-

_Why would you want to meet me? No one ever wants to meet me._

Suddenly, he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs. He stepped off the path and stood, straight-backed, facing the manufactured greenery and trees in the little park area in front of the hospital, where even more patients and other beings strolled and sat in benches, and one couple looked over at him curiously-

_I should have warned you before you started. I’m obviously an admirer of yours._

He kept his face impassive, but brought his left palm up to cover it.

Stars, he missed Ren. Ren was always better at this part, navigating planetside cultures, blending in-

He squeezed his eyes shut.

No. He just missed Ren. More than anything else, he missed Ren. The loss of him _hurt_ , acutely, and Hux hated that he had to do this again.

 

  
_Hux was not expecting to wake with Kylo Ren leaning over him on one elbow, naked, examining him in the dimness of the twenty percent lighting in their quarters. Ren was almost never up this early, especially not after the rather vigorous sex they’d had last night. Hux still ached from it. He shifted, closing his eyes and stretching, feeling Ren’s eyes on his naked body as the sheets shifted around his waist._

_When he opened his eyes again, he returned the favor, offering a frank, lazy examination of Ren’s chest. He frowned, touching a fingertip to a new scar on his shoulder, a round wound, puckered, from a piercing weapon._

_“When were you stabbed?” Hux asked, looking back to Ren’s eyes. Ren had shifted himself between Hux and one of the lights, and his features were dim as his head was backlit._

_“About two weeks ago,” Ren answered absently, his free hand rubbing the scar. “One of the pikes from the Praetorian Guards. Doesn’t matter.”_

_Ren had returned from training the day before. Hux hadn’t seen him in almost a month. He never knew what to say to these new scars, they seemed to bother Ren very little. “It healed well.”_

_“The guard didn’t.”_

_Hux smiled, moving a hand to tuck part of the mess of Ren’s hair behind his ear, tipping Ren's head so Hux could get a better look at his face. “How savage. Who teaches you such things?”_

_The corner of Ren’s mouth quirked up, and he shifted, leaning further down to run a hand along Hux’s chest. “I shouldn’t have told you. I know how offended you are by unnecessary violence.”_

_“You’re in a good mood.”_

_Ren lowered his head, resting it on Hux’s chest. Hux felt the prickle of his beard against his skin. He rubbed a thumb against Ren’s other cheek. “_

_I missed you,” Ren offered._

_“You always do.”_

_Two years in the Order had turned Ren into a different person. More volatile and more violent, certainly, especially right after his Force sessions with Snoke, of which Ren would still not speak. But he’d also developed into a clever battle strategist who took in strengths and weaknesses in the moment better than any of the other Commanders, and his loyalty and dedication to the Order’s cause had become near fervent. His specialized Force skills, used for reconnaissance and interrogation as well as difficult ground battles, were priceless, and only growing better with more experience and training._

_It was Ben Solo’s potential realized, and it was a deeply thrilling transformation to watch. Hux traced the shell of Ren’s ear, and Ren closed his eyes. He wasn’t Ben Solo anymore, but sometimes, in quiet moments such as these, he remembered what Ren had been like when they first met, and the endless hours Hux had spent watching holos of him. He never would have imagined this._

_“My biggest fan,” Ren said mockingly, opening his eyes. “I was lucky you were willing to come all the way across the galaxy into hostile territory to indulge your…” Ren licked his teeth, and his eyes narrowed. “Goals.”_

_Hux twisted his ear, but Ren did not react. Hux made a grunting sound. “It wasn’t luck. I’ve always known what I wanted. And I’ll always have it.”_

_Ren gripped his waist, dragging his stubbled chin up Hux’s chest to the base of his neck. When Hux squirmed, Ren rolled atop him, pushing himself up to kiss him. It was warm and indulgent, and Hux wrapped his fingers in Ren’s hair._

_After several moments, Ren pulled back, the two of them breathing heavily. Hux made an attempt to pull himself out from underneath Ren. “Now I want to get started with my day. I don’t have time to lay abed with you.”_

_“Liar,” Ren smirked, pinning Hux more firmly. “You don’t have any shifts scheduled today.”_

_“Ren,” Hux admonished. “Did you use a datapad and look at a schedule?”_

_Ren’s hand came down and pinched Hux’s side, making him squirm again. “Yeah. I saw you’d scheduled the 49th and 120th today.”_

_“Me?” Hux feigned confusion. Ren was referring to the units scheduled to compete in the Trooper wrestling league that had recently begun. The matches had become more official, and were now written in as part of the Trooper schedules. They drew quite a crowd, and an unused section of the hangar had recently been converted for the purpose of staging the matches with spectators. The techniques were getting better and better. Hux and Ren could not view these in person, as their presences tended to make the performances suffer, and Hux suspected that Ren was not above Force interference to make his favorite units win. But they watched them enthusiastically from their suite on a specially rigged security feed that broadcasted ship-wide._

_The 49th was Hux’s favorite unit, while Ren favored the 120th. Both were double-sized units, so the matches would last several hours as each individual pair fought. Of course Hux had scheduled it to occur once he knew when Ren was returning._

_“I did no such thing. You know I don’t have time to get involved in the details of scheduling.”_

_“Right. Something like that might mean you missed me too.”_

_“Exactly.”_

_When Ren kissed him again and shifted, their skin warmed and sticking together, Hux wrapped his arms around his back, drawing himself up._

_He had missed Ren. It was indulgent, but it was also Ren. Ren was worth it._

 

  
Hux, lost in his memories, was jolted back to the unpleasant circumstances of Republic City by a pressure against his left arm. Hux pulled his hand away from his face and saw that it was a diminutive Chadra-Fan, staring up at him with big orange eyes.

“You okay? Do you need help?” It came out in heavily accented Basic. Hux shook his head.

It occurred to him that Ren being hospitalized seemed as if it had happened years ago. Hux counted back. He’d found Ren here, the first time, only around twenty days ago, relative to whatever the passage of time was to him now. Weeks.

He’d been doing this for weeks, running after Ren.

He resented the thought, but reminded himself that Ren was worth it. He made a dismissive gesture toward the alien, pulling out his datapad.

“No. I just need to make an appointment.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

And so it was that he found himself once again inside the New Republic Senate, seated in the very same reception room, sipping the very same tea he had tasted twice before. This time, he did it with his gloved left hand, leaving his cybernetic right hand ungloved and exposed on the table. He was otherwise uniformed and presented properly, complete with command cap. Or, as properly as he could be. The uniform top still belonged to Bariss, but Hux had paid to have a tailor service make it a better fit for him. It wasn’t perfect, but it would serve. It was teal, which he'd long ago abandoned for grays and blacks, but it wasn't something known outside the Order.

It was fortunate that he hadn’t been left with his own teal Major's uniform. He didn’t think even he could brazen out a meeting with the Major rank insignia reading “Tarkin” in front of Leia Organa.

His gaze strayed to the window again, though he remained seated at the table. This time, it wasn’t the horrors of the New Republic he thought about. It was what Ren and he had done at this table when they’d met here last time.

His reverie was disturbed by Senator Leia Organa, who arrived exactly on time. She looked much the same as she always did - her white robes speaking of power and authority, but not as excessive and ostentatious as most New Republic styles.  Leia Organa didn't need fashion to command a room, and her clothing always communicated this. He wondered why Senator Ren's wardrobe had been so excessive, with his mother to teach him the lesson. Perhaps he'd resisted it.

There was no toying with the schedule, no aid that was sent in to interview Hux instead. Even the edge of care in her body language that gave away her caution was gone. Hux could read nothing from her.

He thinned his lips briefly, reminding himself that he needed this. So he stood and gave a slight bow, offering her the proper greeting. “Senator Organa. My thanks for granting me this audience, and on such short notice.” The words tasted bitter, but he gave nothing away, either in gesture or expression.

Organa’s expression relaxed slightly as she inclined her head. “Major Hux. It’s my pleasure to make time for those who wish to be represented in the Senate.”

“Yes. You have recruited and aided many systems in the far reaches of the galaxy, and I wanted to reach out to you on behalf of the First Order.”

This was all still true, Hux had done the research just after sending the meeting request. In fact, this Senator Organa had done much more outreach, and actively did so, periodically traveling to Mid and Outer Rim worlds that needed assistance, ensuring aid from other planets as needed. This version of Senator Organa didn’t have her fear of the First Order, her Resistance, sidelining her. And the First Order was also not actively recruiting systems that were working counter to her Populist goals in the Senate.

Part of him saw that this was effective. The other part saw how it could be made better. That his way was still superior. Hers still took too long.

“The First Order,” she repeated, amusement touching her eyes as she gracefully took the seat across from Hux, setting her datapad down carefully in front of her. “Yes. It wasn’t an organization I’d heard of before. Can you tell me what you do?”

Hux’s right hand was on the table, and he flexed it, the tech whirring audibly in the stillness of the room. Her gaze darted to it briefly, and he suppressed a smile. It was meant to be a way to distract her, to perhaps gain her sympathy. He wasn’t wrong.

“We function primarily at the edges of the Outer Rim, and in the Unknown Regions. You know from experience that there is… little oversight in those places. Many systems aren’t touched by the technological advances that the rest of the galaxy has. Others are on trade routes, but the wealth isn’t evenly distributed, creating tyrannical ruling classes. Life is hard.” He gestured with his right hand slightly, something he’d practiced, and he’d schooled himself to keep the pain off his face. “We know where help is needed, and what other systems can offer the galaxy in terms of trade, manufacturing, agriculture. But we need help to stabilize these systems first, and then find tech and traders to begin moving among them.”

It was a pretty speech, one he’d practiced for the Senator’s benefit. It affected her as he thought, her gaze sharpening, her hands moving across her datapad.

“I understand. And what does the First Order… do, Major?”

“We attempt to help struggling systems. Establish these trade routes the best we can. Police them for smuggling, and for pirates taking advantage of locals. We negotiate trade deals, and make sure all systems are getting treated fairly, and that nobody is taken advantage of.”

Her eyes moved up and down his body, lingering longest on his right hand. “Are you a military organization?”

Hux gestured with his right hand again. “We are based in that, yes. And we do have a small fleet we use to pursue pirates and small-scale cartel activity.” This was actually true, they did not have a fleet larger than this. It pained him not to lie about it. “But the appearance of Order is important. Sometimes that’s all it takes to cow a dictator. That, and a small fleet circling the planet.”

“I don’t know that I agree with that.”

Hux inclined his head. “I understand, Princess.” Her expression didn’t change, though the title felt like ash on his tongue. It was necessary, to recognize Alderaan in this moment. “But we would, of course, welcome the New Republic into the areas we patrol, and we would stand down as necessary once we felt the safety of the systems was assured.”

This was more real, more genuine, than he liked. He could speak to their goals, and he could outline a more palatable version for New Republic consumption. But the truth of it was awful. They really could ally with the New Republic and do better.

The Senator made a considering noise, eyes down and tapping away on her datapad. “Can you be more specific? What would you say is the most pressing challenge your organization currently faces?”

Hux pretended to consider for a moment, drawing out his own datapad and pulling up the information he’d organized in advance. “That would be the Kennek system. They are on one of the trade routes we are trying to establish. It’s a system rich in parite, and we’ve helped them to begin more large-scale mining operations, but their shipments are constantly stolen by pirates. We’re spread too thin to escort them. We’d like to find buyers for the parite, and also receive assistance escorting the shipments to their destination.”

This was mostly accurate, though the parite didn’t go anywhere but to First Order projects - it was a component in the malleable plastic they used on all the benches and seating they made. Or, at least, the parite hadn’t gone elsewhere in the past. It was distant enough from their current operations that New Republic investigations would not find them. And if they could escort the parite to a fake trade site? All the better. They could establish a front to trade small amounts of the mineral for more credits with whatever systems in the New Republic wanted it.

There was the additional benefit that the Kennek system was in the Unknown Regions, and unlikely to show up on New Republic maps.

The Senator frowned. “That’s not a system we have a record of.”

“Of course. Part of our focus is reaching out to new systems.” He tapped his datapad, and a projection of the three habitable planets in the system appeared before them, with related population, economic, and cultural information.

Leia gazed at it briefly, frowning, then looked back to Hux. Something about the pitch wasn’t sitting right with her, which was absurd. It was all correct, and he’d written it specifically to cater to her New Republic sympathies.

She cleared her throat, and tapped her own datapad, replacing the holoprojection of Kennek with Hux’s own face.

It was a bounty from the First Order, paid out if Hux was dead or alive.

His gaze met the Senator’s through the holoprojection. Her eyebrows rose. “Care to explain this, Armitage?”

Hux remained silent, his jaw clenched, his thoughts frozen. This was far from expected. Would she assume he was a criminal? Would she turn him over to them? He could run, he would have to run-

“It’s okay,” her voice softened. “Something brought you here to speak to me. Something happened. I sense… I sense it’s a personal favor, that the diplomatic routine was an excuse to meet me.” She cleared the holoprojection, leaning forward. “Are you in trouble? Are you fleeing from the First Order?”

He nearly barked out a laugh. Because it was _true_ , all of it was true, he didn’t even have to _lie_. He gestured to where the holoprojection had been between them. “My father’s doing. Brendol Hux. Do you recognize the name?”

Her gaze, more intent now, went back down to the datapad, and she typed in a few commands. Brendol Hux’s fact sheet projected between them.

“Ex-Imperial. Former Commandant of the Imperial Officer’s Academy on Arkanis. Hasn’t been seen in over thirty years.” She glanced up again. “You look just like him.”

Hux snorted. His father was younger than he was in the photo, he appeared to be designated Lieutenant. He hated the resemblance. “Appearance is all we have in common.”

It was, perhaps, more of a lie than anything else he’d said to her in the meeting. Her eyebrows went up, and she wondered if she could sense it, like Ren. She cleared the holoprojection, and once again leaned forward.

“So what can I, specifically, do for you, Armitage? Why are you here?”

He thinned his lips. He knew the meeting would have eventually come to this, but he still hadn’t thought of a good way to phrase it. This hadn’t gone well the last two times he’d spoken to Ben’s mother, looking for Ben.

But he had to find Ren.

“I had… a vision,” he began, unsure. It wasn’t quite a lie, but it also wasn’t the truth, and he shook his head. “It was more than a vision. I’m certain it was real. I met your son in 22 ABY, when we were both younger. We lived together after that. We had… a different life.” He flexed his hands on the table in an uncharacteristic nervous gesture, winced when the right one pained him, and hated himself. “I’m looking for him,” he finished simply. “I… keep having these… visions. Where I need to find him. Where…”

 _Our lives are bound_ , his memory supplied for him. He closed his mouth without saying it. He wondered if she heard it anyway.

She said nothing, simply stared at him.

“Where is your son, Senator Organa?”

When the silence stretched between them, he stood, his right hand at his side, gesturing sharply between them with the left. “Test me. Do whatever Jedi mind trick you need to. Bring your brother in. I’m not lying.” He clenched his jaw, still hating himself. He had lost control. This wasn’t _patience_. But it was also the only lead he ever had on Ren. And he needed to find Ben Solo, wherever he was, if it wasn’t in the hospital, or the Senate, or the First Order.

The words stuck in his throat. The more sincere ones. The ones that may have swayed someone as sentimental as Leia Organa, who had married her smuggler husband and had estranged him and her entire family in aid of her cause.

_I need him. He needs me._

She deflated, closing her eyes and bringing a hand up to her forehead. “I believe you, for what it’s worth.” Her hand lowered, and she looked at him wryly. “You don’t have to get worked up. I can sense you aren’t lying. Mostly.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “At least not about Ben.”

Her hands went to the table, and she traced the edges of her datapad with her fingertips. Her perfect posture sagged. Hux stood over her, waiting for the rest of it. Eventually, she spoke, looking up at him.

“22 ABY. That’s quite a vision. A long life.”

Hux frowned, deciding clarifying would not hurt his cause this time. “In the… other visions I’ve had like this, where I find him. When we meet, when we were supposed to have met, was 22 ABY. It was-” He clenched his jaw, and said it anyway. “Primeday, in the seventh month. We met after an appearance he made in the Senate. He began living with me a year after that.” He paused, unable to continue saying something so ridiculous aloud. “Do you believe in visions like that, Senator Organa? Or am I wasting my time?” He made his tone chillier than he intended, but he hated exposing himself like this. This was weakness, delivered directly into the hands of his enemies. But he needed Ren. He needed Ren at least this badly.

She shook her head. “I’ve heard of far stranger, Armitage.” She looked back down at her datapad, absently. “I believe in them, sure. I know they happen.  They can be warnings, I've heard, but sometimes they’re real.”

Hux thinned his lips, then continued. “When I need to… find him, in these visions, because we didn’t meet in 22 ABY. He’s always had something happen instead. He stops being a Jedi after 22 ABY every time.”

Leia nodded. “That’s the part you can’t fake. Ben got… Ben left his training in 22 ABY. He wasn’t himself after that.” She cast her eyes down, finger running along the datapad again. “After a year, he started working for his father. I haven’t spoken to him since then. Han used to give me updates, said Ben just didn’t have time to send comms. Was doing delicate work. The same stuff Han was doing.” She laughed, hollowly. “I had work of my own that kept me busy. I wasn’t trying that hard to get in touch with them.”

Hux shook his head once. He’d only heard Ren speak of his father rarely. They hadn’t been close at all. “So his father keeps in touch with him? Han Solo?” Hux remembered that Han Solo had apparently fallen on hard times and begun smuggling again. Or had, at least. He had died at least twice, but it seemed he was still alive now.

“Han hasn’t heard from him in years,” she admitted, standing, looking Hux in the eye again. “But if you’re looking for Ben, I’d ask him.”

Hux nodded dismissively, looking away from Leia and out the window, his mind racing ahead. Easy. He would find Han Solo-

“Where is Han Solo now?” He asked as Leia rose to leave the room.

She froze in mid-motion. She looked tired. “I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to him in a long time, either. He’s cagey about where he holes up. Try The Broken Jizz-Box on Corellia first. He’ll have friends there. They’ll know where to find him.”

Hux grit his teeth, thinking of his previous Corellian bar crawl. At least he’d know where to start and who to ask this time, and skip the extraordinary waste of time and resources.

Leia seemed to consider him for several long moments. “You got a lot out of me today, Major. Armitage.” Hux’s eyes snapped back to her, but didn’t correct her on the use of his first name. “One more thing you should know about my son. He doesn’t want to be found. And he changed his name. If you’re looking for him-”

“Kylo Ren,” Hux said, unbidden. He nodded when her eyes widened. “I know Kylo Ren.”

_Kylo Ren will be looking for me. Maybe he’s been looking for me. But he knew where to find me, isn't in a hospital this time, and didn’t-_

Leia shook her head. “Maybe you can find him. You believe you can. You seem to think you have a special bond.” She stared at him another long moment. “Maybe you do.” She nodded back to the empty conference table. “Good luck dodging the bounty hunters, Armitage.”

The door closed behind her as she left.

Hux had to modulate his step to keep from running back to his transport.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Corellia was a simple jog from the Hosnian system, a Core World at the nexus of several trade routes. It took the autopilot a matter of hours to get there, and he decided to change back into his flight suit. Then, on the spur of the moment, he took the jacket off and went in a sleeveless undershirt with the flight suit pants. It was too cold for this nonsense, but it showed off his cybernetic arm to great advantage, which he knew would serve him well in these bars. He had looked too out-of-place the last time he’d been to Corellia. Now he looked, and was, more world-weary, with at least one bad deal behind him.

The timing worked out perfectly, and he arrived at The Broken Jizz-Box just as the traders were beginning to gather for the evening. There was a noisy three-piece band playing in the corner, and a large group was already drunkenly singing along in a language Hux did not recognize. He scanned the crowd, and saw many aging humans, but no Han Solo. No Ren.

He went up to the bar, and scowled when he saw the same Rodian bartender he’d dealt with last time.

“I’m looking for Han Solo,” he said, laying ten credits on the bar top.

The Rodian made it disappear. “Haven’t seen him around these parts in awhile. The Irving Boys were looking too hard around here. Try Onten City, about thirty klicks north of here.”

Hux stared at the alien, who abruptly turned around and went and waited on another customer.

He took out his blaster, pointed it at the alien’s back, then fired it into the ceiling. The bar fell silent around him. He turned to the swelling evening crowd.

“Who here knows Han Solo?”

“We all do, pal,” an anonymous voice rang out from the back of the room. Another yelled out in a language Hux didn’t understand. He cursed. He should have stolen a protocol droid from the First Order. If they had anything as sophisticated as a thirty-year-old protocol droid.

“Where is Han Solo tonight?”

“Try harder, Guavian,” a heavily accented voice called out, and several voices jeered at him.

He holstered his weapon, then put his left hand over his face.

“I hate Corellia,” he muttered, as he moved out of the bar. “I hate Han Solo. I hate fucking Ren.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

After doing a bar crawl that was the backwards twin to the one he’d already enjoyed, he was finally able to convince enough beings that, yes, he had work for Han Solo. No, he was not otherwise threatening the old man’s life. What kind of threat would that be? Hux had been serious, though the beings seemed to think it was a fantastic joke.

The person that finally gave Solo up was, allegedly, someone who Solo owed money to. Hux had to convince her that he wasn’t a member of the Guavian Death Gang, but the broken-down trader woman seemed more convinced by Hux’s accent, temper, and method of speaking anyway.

He tried asking about Ben Solo instead of Han a few times, then tried Kylo Ren. Most hadn’t heard of him in a long time. A few clammed up. No amount of credits could get them to speak. So he needed to rely on Han Solo for the information. If not, he’d have to hang around Corellia for longer, working any scraps of info out of the close-knit bands of traders, smugglers, racers, and escorts. Slowly. Patiently.

The last bar he tried was the first he’d gone to last time. It was a more lavish bar in a casino, the lighting higher and the fixtures cleaner and more upscale compared to the rest of the Corellian cantinas. There were still plenty of traders, but there were also other beings in finer clothes, professional gamblers and those trying to pretend at it mixed into the crowded tables. The music was piped in, rather than live.

Less than a minute after pushing his way into the crowd, he saw Han Solo, old, gray, and sitting in a booth by himself in a far back corner, dimly-lit and away from the press of people. He wore the same dark pants and old vest that Hux had expected of him. He'd seen many holos of the man, and hadn't seen him in any other outfit. Hux could appreciate a uniform, even if it wasn't up to his own standards.

Hux slid in opposite him, and signalled for a drink.

“Buzz off, kid. I ain’t here for you tonight.”

Hux’s temper was short by now, and he’d used what little diplomacy he possessed on Senator Organa, and all his goodwill on the Corellian rabble for the last two hours. He wanted none of it from Solo the elder.

“No? Out to scam more credits off some unsuspecting trader?”

Han Solo arched his eyebrows. “You get the idea, then.”

“I’m not here to hire you-”

“Then we don’t need to talk.” He gestured, trying to shoo Hux away, slumping down further into the booth. Hux leaned forward, bracing himself on his cybernetic right arm. Solo stared at it, as did most people on Corellia. There hadn’t been a lot of visible cybernetics, and none that were a whole arm like Hux’s. People gawked. He was satisfied with it, so he pushed down the pain now, which ached and shot through his shoulder like fire when he put his weight against it.

“We do. You have some information I want.”

“Buying some info on an old contact out of me? Classy. Find some other sell-out. I don’t do that.”

“No, you just steal cargo.”

Solo rolled his eyes. “It’s a trade-up system. I’m just further behind than I’d like.”

“I’m sure.” Hux slid two hundred credits across the table with his metal hand, and he saw Solo’s eyes snap to them hungrily.

He continued to stare at them as he answered. “It takes more than two hundred credits to get me to rat out a friend, Red.”

“Who says you have any friends?”

“I like you, kid.” He looked up into Hux’s face, gave a smirk, and Hux saw Solo make the credits disappear. “Two hundred buys my attention for the next two minutes.”

Hux rolled his own eyes. “Your attention isn't worth it. But your son is.”

He saw Solo’s gaze sharpen, his posture straighten. “What do you know about Ben?”

Hux shoved down his disappointment. Solo could offer him nothing. But he needed somewhere to start. He needed to find Ren.

“Nothing. He goes by Kylo Ren. I want to find him.”

Solo leaned back, disappointment crossing his own features. “You and a hundred others, kid. He disappeared.”

“To _where_.” His drink came over, and he glanced down. A shot of Corellian whiskey. He held it up in front of him. “I’ll find him. I don't care if no one else can, or will. I'll do it.” He downed the shot, setting the glass down on the table gently as Solo stared at him.

“And what’s he done to you?”

Hux raised his eyebrows, almost laughing. He considered his answer, considered how much to give to Han Solo. But again, if he could find Ren, Solo could have it all.

“He gave me...” _Everything_.  "His life, I suppose. I gave him mine, and both seem to be missing. I want them back." Hux shrugged, glancing to the front entrance of the bar, then back to Solo, wondering if he should go for more nonchalance. “And he owes me at least one good fuck for all the trouble he’s put me through.”

Something strange flashed across Solo’s features. “Good luck with that. As far as I know, no one’s gotten into his pants yet.”

“I have.” He leaned forward again. “Give me something. Anything.” He lowered his voice, stared directly into Han Solo’s tired eyes. “I’ll bring him with me. Whatever he’s done. I don’t care. It’s nothing to me.”

Solo stared at him, his expression unreadable. “Are you from the syndicate? Has he made off, made some bad deal finally?” He shifted back. “How’d you get into his bed?”

This was an absurd question from Ren’s father, so Hux ignored it. “I’m not from the syndicate. Does he work for one? Can I find him there?”

Han Solo brought a blaster to the tabletop casually, not breaking Hux’s stare. It was an old model, even older than the ones he’d learned to shoot with, but it made a humming noise as the cell primed. It would fire.

“I’ve been around the planet a few times, kid. You’re asking some hard questions about my son, I don’t know who you are, and your two minutes is up.”

Hux tapped his cybernetic fingertips on the tabletop, then cocked his own blaster, held in his left hand below the table. The cybernetic had distracted Solo, as he knew it would. The blaster had been a First Order service weapon, and it was nearly as old as Solo’s. The telltale humming would have been mortifying under other circumstances. There was a moment when Solo’s face registered surprise, and Hux made a split-second decision to fire into the wall next to Solo’s side. The room quieted, but Hux left his blaster under the tabletop and his gaze on Solo.

The silence in the cantina was broken by Solo, who laughed, laying his gun on the table and letting his guard down. It continued long and loud, and slowly, the music and chatter started up around them again. Solo wiped at his eyes, then leaned forward, both hands folded on the table.

“You beat me at my own game, kid. You could have done it any time, and I’d have never known. But how’d you know I don’t have Wookie backup?”

“Do you think there’s anyone in the galaxy that doesn’t know to watch for the Wookie? He’s not here. I’ve learned your friends… while I’ve investigated.” He’d learned it twice, actually. “You don’t have any others.”

Solo’s tired face grew more serious, and he studied Hux for a moment. “I hope you’re telling the truth. I hope you aren’t like everyone else trying to find Ben.”

“I’m not. I can guarantee it.”

“You won’t hurt him?”

The corner of Hux’s mouth twitched. “Not badly.”

Solo gave him a small answering smile. “He probably deserves that.” He glanced to the side, then leaned forward again, continuing. “Crymorah. He’s been there for six years. Good luck digging through that mess, kid. I told him not to. Haven’t seen him since. Either you’re from there, or you didn’t know that. Take it. It’s all I have about him.”

He deflated after that, leaning back in the booth, looking defeated and dismissing Hux with a hand wave. The conversation was obviously over. Hux sat back. Thought about asking more questions. What was Ren like now? What made him join the syndicate? What did he do for Solo before that?

Instead, he stood up and left the bar, and Han Solo. He wondered if he should do something more to help the old man. His own father’s money could cover some of his debt.

But ultimately, he didn’t. Han Solo had survived this long. Either he would continue on, or he wouldn’t.

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
Crymorah was… a difficulty. While it was always relatively simple to schedule a meeting with Leia Organa, a prominent New Republic Senator, the largest crime syndicate in the galaxy was another matter. He had contacts in the organization previously, but they’d taken careful years to establish and cultivate. He was sure this version of the First Order was nowhere near large enough to have them still, even if he could still pass himself off as an officer. Without connections, he had absolutely no way to contact the organization. He couldn’t simply schedule a meeting with one of the Chapter Heads and ask for information on Kylo Ren. Especially when he had so little information himself. Was Ren an enforcer? Was he a Chapter Head or a Syndicate Leader? Did he somehow run the entire organization now?

Unfortunately, he would have to be careful, and start at the very bottom of the organization. This would take time. Patience. There were safe ways to approach them, and it wasn’t out of the question that he could find information on Ren. It would depend on who Ren was, how Hux presented himself, how he asked…

There were a lot of variables. It was discouraging. Hux reminded himself that he could do this, and that Ren was worth it. Perhaps Ren’s position in Crymorah would provide new opportunities for both of them. It was a pleasant thought, and he convinced himself of it as he developed his long-term strategy.

First, he paid a slicer on Corellia to take his bounty out the system. He didn’t need to watch his back while he tried infiltrating Crymorah. He also wanted control of the information available on himself. Bounties presented a lot of variables, and he didn't want assumptions made.

Second. He couldn’t approach Crymorah as only one person. He evaluated several possible strategies, and there was no way to do a solo approach without becoming an entry-level agent. He’d had more than enough of basic soldier work, and that might take too long depending on how Ren was connected.

He considered representing the First Order as an emerging organization, but he had nothing to offer Crymorah, which was the only thing they would care about. There was no gesture, no threat, no peace, and no job he could exchange for the information he wanted. So he would need to find leverage. Doing that as an individual would get him killed. Crymorah was professional, wealthy, and well-connected. Once he had something they wanted, they would take it unless he could stop them.

So he needed at least one other person. Someone he could trust, someone whose skills would be up to Crymorah levels of toughness. Someone he could hire as a bodyguard on short notice.

The perfect candidate came to him immediately. He knew how to hire them, and where to find them. Still, he slept in his ship for three days on Corellia before he could bring himself to enter the coordinates into the nav computer.

He didn’t trust Phasma with his life. But he knew how to control her, and he knew exactly _how_  to trust her with everything else.

Parnassos was a two-day trip from Corellia, and he spent a third day orbiting it carefully and considering his approach. His father had experienced a… significant ordeal on the surface, one that neither he nor Phasma ever spoke of. So Hux wanted to go in with as much information as possible.

Brendol had lost his beloved yacht during his stay on Parnassos, so something had destroyed it. Orbital defenses, or weapons on the surface? Hux didn’t have the equipment for sophisticated scans, but the basic tech that his transport was fitted with indicated very little of either. Had his father really lost his ship to primitives? Or the aging relics of expansion? Hux used the weak offensive capabilities of the transport to target and eliminate the orbital defenses, just to be certain, then scanned the surface more carefully.

Most of the terrain was desert, and the scans indicated three sparse settlements and several more abandoned areas, potentially with extensive active or deactivated tech. Considering it was a planet, there were very few places to live, and it made searching for Phasma easier than it would be on nearly any other planet. Still, it was a _planet_ , and he needed to find one person without the aid of planetwide technology.

He watched the shapes of the continents, and then the surface, as he brought his ship into a lower and lower orbit. This would be a challenge, but not an insurmountable one. Going into a settlement by himself was suicide, and he couldn’t very well knock on the door of every building asking for Phasma, especially since the settlements were far enough apart that they could potentially be isolated from one another.

She had obviously been a warrior with her own fighting techniques prior to joining the First Order. He couldn’t look up her detailed First Order training profile, but he knew it well enough. He sat back in the pilot’s seat, closing his eyes to recall it.

She was physically powerful, and her skills with primitive weapons, grappling, and hand-to-hand combat had been exceptional even before she started basic training. Exceptional, but not unique. Any one of these settlements could have fighters, weapons of any sort. Brendol had destroyed all of it from orbit before leaving, so there hadn’t been any information on the planet when Hux had tried to research it.

He opened his eyes, reading over the scan data from the settlements again as he thought about Phasma. She had been weak with working in units, though. It had taken her a long time to get used to the idea of fighting with so many people, against a large group, and…

In an open area.

So not the desert. His pulse quickened as the pieces fit together, and he eliminated three of the settlements. The desert settlements also seemed too large for what Phasma’s initial skillset implied. And their isolation meant none were likely to have much experience with the kind of warfare Phasma had needed training with. But.

She had been very agile. Some of the techniques she had introduced into training involved fighting in rough landscape. Climbing and grappling in rocky terrain.

He scanned again, and found faint signs of life in one place along one of the rocky coasts. There. It was there, and it was small. He wouldn’t have seen it if he hadn’t been looking.

He took a breath. Told himself to be patient. Be careful. He did another scan, this time going over all the rocky terrain looking for signs of large lifeforms. It took half of another day to be certain he’d found everything.

And he was right. There was just the one place.

If Phasma lived, she would rule the settlement and be easy enough to find.

He ran his left hand through his hair.

“Fuck.”

He was certain she was there. He was equally certain that he did not want to confront Phasma on her home turf. She would kill him for the clothes on his back if the settlement was primitive enough. Hux could use a blaster well, but he knew from firsthand experience that Phasma’s specially-trained warriors would be more than a match for his service weapon.

Unless they weren’t. He would have to use his advantages carefully.

 

 

* * *

 

 

After a day’s detour to use his father’s money to purchase a proximity alert for humanoid lifeforms, he finally took the transport into the Parnassos atmosphere and landed near the settlement, on the desert side of the ridge leading up into the treacherous coastal mountain range.

He used the proximity alert to take out the expected sentries with a rifle. He’d never been as good a shot with a rifle as with a service blaster, and was worse now with his cybernetic. But the sentries weren’t wearing armor, and he was good enough. Climbing the ridge was also difficult with the cybernetic, and not something he could have managed well with both of his arms. It was slow, and he struggled with it, but kept himself alert enough to use the proximity alert and the rifle scope to pick off more sentries as they approached and peered down at him. He absolutely couldn’t let them near as he was climbing. This was their turf, and he had to assume they were Phasma’s sentries. They would be brutal and ruthless.

He’d told himself all this before he’d begun - that he’d have to do the climbing that he wasn’t good at. That he’d have to use the rifle he wasn’t good with. That he’d be taking on a settlement of warriors that Phasma had trained to maximum efficiency with the weapons and terrain she knew best. That he would need to confront them as one man.

He’d told himself all this so he could work the terror out of his system, so that he forced himself to see, logically, that this was the only course of action. There was nothing to be afraid of, it was simply the way forward. He visualized himself doing it, and succeeding. There was no room for fear, for a lack of confidence. He was smart, and well-prepared, and knew exactly what to expect and say.

And whenever his boot slipped on the edge, as he felt the sharp edges of rock digging into the leather of his left glove, as his cybernetic arm ached and was still not terribly useful, he banished his terror. It would not help. Confidence would.

He’d killed eight people by the time he reached the crest of the ridge, and another three as he walked along a well-polished path in the red rock that led to a looming cave. It was as humble and miserable as he’d expected from Brendol and Phasma’s non-stories. There was no plantlife growing anywhere nearby, no animals or birds that he could see. The sea was a cacophony at the foot of the ridge below, a straight and deadly fall for the unweary. It had an unspeakable odor as well - salty and rotten. It was worse than the Jakku desert he’d seen as a boy, worse than the sad and broken cities of Coruscant. Hux wondered how humans had wound up here, and how long they’d lived like this.

He was not surprised to find Phasma standing at the mouth of the cave, face covered by a wreck of a mask, body covered in shreds of fabric pulled together into a ragged sleeveless shirt and something that was either a long skirt or wide-legged trousers.  There were many layers, and the colors had faded to a dull brown.  One section of the bottoms had a faded plaid pattern.  There were three thick belts draped around her waist, with two long bladed weapons at her sides.  She held her hands over the handles, the muscles of her exposed arms bunched and tense.

He’d know her, even though her only definable physical feature was her height and posture. She was much thinner, and had short-cropped blond hair visible above the mask. He’d never seen it before.

“Phasma,” he greeted shortly, inclining his head, and smiled when he saw her tense.

She gestured, and two more warriors approached him. He took them out easily with his blaster, barely looking in their direction and quickly facing Phasma, leaving the blaster in his left hand. The other warriors stared at the still bodies, their bladed weapons and spears still clutched in their hands. He knew better than to let any of them get within range to use them, either throwing or striking distance. He’d seen some barbaric things in the holos of recruitment missions gone wrong.

“Don’t. I won’t let any of you near me.” He kept his voice steady, his eyes on Phasma’s, in that strange mask. He could see her eyes glinting beneath it, though not their color, and nothing else about her facial expression. But he wasn't afraid. He had the upper hand. He was ready. “I wish to speak to you.”

“Why.” Her accent was rough, and he blinked, taking a moment to process the implications of that. She had taught herself to speak with the Imperial accent his father used before she’d reached any of the Destroyers, then. Impressive. The implications of that were even more terrifying than what he knew of her, but it wasn't relevant right now.

He looked around the camp. There were a total of fifteen people eyeing him warily. Six were armed warriors, the rest appeared to be unarmed civilians, staring from within the darkness of the cave behind Phasma. No children. No elderly. They were all thin and malnourished, wearing the same sorts of rags that Phasma wore, most with shorter bottoms and bared torsos. Some of them appeared to have some sort of burn on their skin. The area was highly radioactive, and he guessed the people in this settlement had ten years, at most, without intervention.

“I need a partner,” he said lightly, taking a step forward. “I happen to know that your skills are exactly what I’m looking for.”

“Partner,” again, in that same rough accent. “Where.”

He pointed straight up. “Somewhere else. We’ll be leaving presently.”

She took a step forward. Another. He kept his finger on the trigger of his blaster.

“Phasma,” he heard one of the warriors call, and he said something in an accent so thick that Hux had difficulty understanding it. Something about Hux being a stranger, how would she know a stranger.

“You’ve heard of me,” she returned shortly. “How.”

“Not important.” He gestured dismissively, hoping to make himself sound more mysterious and powerful than he was. He thought of Ren, but the idea of feigning Force powers, even briefly, was exhausting. The sun was beating down, he was sweating. His pulse was throbbing in his temple. He wanted this to be over, for Phasma to be in the ship. He also didn’t want that. Seeing her like this suddenly reminded him that this Phasma would be different, and he may have misjudged her.

“I need a warrior. I’m seeking someone else, another warrior. The three of us together will take over…” he wasn’t sure how to explain this in a context that the tribe would understand. “The galaxy,” he said simply, internally cringing at how it sounded aloud. He would be the only one that would notice. “I do the talking. You do the fighting.”

She cocked her head, and she could see his value in her eyes falling. He wasn’t a warrior, and it was all she knew. He gestured, this time with his cybernetic hand. He watched every eye in the camp follow it.

“Talking is a more useful skill when there are more people around to listen. As you can see, you haven’t killed me yet.”

“Where,” she repeated. “We went out. There are no other people. No food. Nothing.”

Hux gave her a pitying look, looking around the rest of the eyes in the small settlement, entirely enclosed in the cave. “There are other people on this planet. Not many. But I don’t care about Parnassos. I don’t plan on coming back.” He pointed up to the sky again. “I’m going away from here.”

“Away from here.” He could hear it in her voice, a modicum of emotion, what her voice actually sounded like. She wanted this. She took another step forward.

“He lies,” someone else hissed in another harsh accent. And because if this didn’t work, Hux would be dead, he shot the speaker with his blaster. It was one of the non-combatants.

“If I wanted to kill you, I would shoot you where you stand, and you would be dead. But I didn’t come all the way to Parnassos to kill everyone in your village. I came to take you away.”

She took another step forward. Held out a hand. “I want one.”

Hux took a moment to realize she was asking for his blaster, and stifled a bark of nervous laughter. “I don’t think so. Not until we get on my ship.”

She shook her head. “I want one.”

“This is the talking part,” he said gently. “I know better than to give you a weapon you’ll kill me with right now. I want to know you won’t shoot me with it. You’ll need to trust me long enough to board my ship.”

She tilted her head. Some of the people behind her were pressed together, murmuring.

“We need to vote,” someone told Phasma, and she turned to look at her. “This is sudden. Some of us will not want to leave the Scyre. We need to be safe.”

Hux shook his head, raising his voice to speak to them. “I can’t take the whole village. I’m only taking Phasma.” Leaving them here was wrong. Helping planets like Parnassos was what the First Order did. But he could not rescue this many people right now. He had come to terms with this as he weighed his options in the Parnassos orbit. The lack of children made it easier. Part of him knew he would have taken the starving children if he saw them. But there were only adults here.

When Phasma turned to look at him, he continued, speaking more quietly, and directly to her. “Life on my ship will be easier than this. There’s food, water. Clothing. It’s not too hot or too cold. I can treat you if you’re sick.” He saw a rash creeping over one of her shoulders, and hoped it wasn’t anything fatal. “And we’ll take some time to train before we reach our destination. I’ll give you a blaster. Tell you how I want you to fight, what to expect. You’ll see.”

This was an abridged version of the talk he normally gave new recruits that were brought on the _Finalizer_ , minus all the First Order rhetoric, since nothing was being provided by or to the benefit of the First Order. Though both of those things were still true, he supposed, since he’d taken the money from his father and wanted to seize the Order again once he found Ren.

“Phasma,” another voice spoke up. “He’ll kill you. You can’t leave.”

Hux shot the speaker with a quick gesture, breaking eye contact with Phasma only briefly to aim. “I won’t kill you. But this planet might. Or one of your opponents might, in the future. I won’t, unless you give me cause.”

Phasma stared at him another moment, then turned to address the adults in the cave. “I can leave.”

Hux blinked. He’d never seen anyone willing to turn on their entire village on a whim before, not without seeking power over it. He thought this would be much more difficult. He’d brought tranquilizers, had planned on taking her on board and reconditioning her. He would still do that, but it shouldn’t have been this easy to convince her. He’d only meant to get behind her guard.

“Phasma,” someone else spoke. “When will you be back?”

She turned her back on the speaker, held her hand out to Hux. “I want one. Before I leave the village. Now.”

Hux met her glittering eyes again, and something cold clenched inside him. He thought he knew where this was going. It wasn’t fear that twisted his stomach, but disgust, disappointment, weariness. This just… made him tired. He looked at her, then at the handful of people crowded behind her. He leveled his blaster with his left hand, then slowly, not wanting to reveal his awkwardness, worked his scanner with his right. There were no villagers behind him, none nearby waiting in ambush. He sighed, looking at her, then the people of the Scyre again. He stowed the scanner and drew the rife, holding it in his right hand in a mockery of proper form. She didn’t know that, and neither did any of the villagers.

“I can shoot you before you shoot me. Do you believe me?”

She nodded. He could see that she did. He stared at her another long moment, then tossed the smaller service blaster at her feet.

“I want that back when you’re done.”

He made himself watch as Phasma shot every person in the village. He should have known it would come to this. It was effectively what she and Brendol had done together - erased her past. It was what he knew she’d do to him if he let his guard down, or if she thought she could.

She got the gist of the blaster, pulling the trigger and aiming into the clumps of people near her. After the first three, he could see her adjusting the aim, correcting her form, bracing her arm, looking down the barrel.

She got all but four, who ran and hid from her. She dropped the blaster, running off towards the treacherous coastal rock formations where the villagers had disappeared. He retrieved his blaster, then watched his scanner as the four spread further and further out among the rock formations. Phasma found all of them, and he watched the signs of life fade from the scans as the bodies cooled. It took her ten minutes to find the last.

Hux went into the cave and looked around. There were primitive tools and relics from a settlement mission a hundred or more years before. He recognized some sort of primitive biological vaperator for collecting moisture. He exited and looked out over the edge of the cliff at the rancid, oily ocean water, not wanting to know what it contained.

There were rags, leftover textiles - the settlement had never made its own cloth. There was some basic furniture and tools, carved out of stone and bone. The bladed weapons were growing notched and dull with age.

He sat in the entrance of the cave, waiting with the scanner in his lap. Presently, Phasma returned. They stared at each other. Hux shook his head.

“You didn’t even need any proof that I was telling the truth.”

Phasma cocked her head. “Truth?” She looked over, near a cluster of bodies at the mouth of the cave. She looked back at him. “You’re here. You have that weapon. There was no chance of surviving here. I'll go with you.”

Hux looked over at the clump of dead bodies. “What did you eat here?” He forced himself to ask.

“Moss from the rocks. Tenni snails. Bloatfish.”

He waited, but she didn’t say anything else. He’d seen… similar. Maybe not worse. He stood. “All right. Go ahead of me down the rocks. I don’t trust you. For obvious reasons.” He pointed in the direction of his ship. “You can see where I landed from the edge. Meet me at the ship.”

“Meet you at the ship,” she repeated, this time mimicking Hux’s pronunciation. He smiled at her.

“Keep the accent. It’s useful. It will make people underestimate you.”

She nodded, then turned and quickly disappeared down the rock face. He clenched his jaw, willing the tremor in his muscles to relax. This had been hard. It was still hard. He had just watched Phasma mow down her entire village, and was taking her onto his ship.

It would be hard until they found Ren.

He went down more slowly than he had come up, unwilling to take his eyes off his scanner, no matter how difficult the climb was. If Phasma came up behind him, he wanted to be able to shoot her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He had stocked the transport with prepared food in order to easily illustrate what he could do for Phasma, and what kind of power he held. She ate everything he put in front of her. Meats, fruits, root vegetables. Piles of them, samples from three different nearby systems. She didn’t take the mask off, just tipped it up and shoveled the food underneath with her hands. Hux watched her, leaning against the wall near the table. He made sure she was aware of his presence while she ate.

He led her to the medical suite and its scanners next, telling her the med pod would heal the lesions on her skin. Which it would. But he’d also loaded it with a modified version of the conditioning program. He’d deleted Brendol’s from the system and made his own hasty version. She wouldn’t remember it, but it would make her more likely to follow his orders, less likely to disregard his advice. He knew better, he wanted to help her, all that. He set the settings on the pod very low, and convinced her to use it for at least two months, that Parnassos had taken a toll on her body, and she simply needed the enhanced rest to be in top condition.

During the first session in the med pod (where it was revealed that she had near-fatal radiation poisoning and a number of other nutrition issues killing her from the inside out), he also locked every system in the ship to his living biometrics. When she asked about the locked systems a week later, he explained to her how it worked, making sure to specify that he would need to be alive in order to make the ship function.

He took her to Nal Hutta to choose weapons. She’d brought two bladed weapons with her from Parnassos, but chose two different, better ones. Hux also bought her a blaster and did weapons training with her himself. They stayed planetside and trained in a range nearly every day. Hux tested her ambitions as well - they stayed in the same building, in separate rooms. He made sure that it was the kind of lodging on Nal Hutta that was moderately impenetrable, so that not even Phasma could break into his rooms. Phasma stayed in the building with him and did not flee overnight, showing up for every meal and appearing, for all intents, absorbed in her weapons training.

She excelled, and after a week, he left her to train by herself before she learned that she could outshoot him. He spent the next three weeks gathering all the information he needed about Crymorah. He paid slicers, contacts, took trips to speak to some representatives. Legitimate information was easy to come by on Nal Hutta. He took Phasma with him once, just so she could see herself that what he did was nothing she was interested in.

He also explained their mission to her, about six weeks into their acquaintance.

“I’m looking for a man named Kylo Ren. The Crymorah syndicate knows about him, and I want what they know.”

“Why not ask them?”

“Because the syndicate is large and not everyone would know who he is. They would pretend to, though, and ask for outrageous payments and favors for the information.”

Phasma considered him. Hux had given her a flight suit, complete with black helmet. It was jarring, as it was not her chrome armor. But he had offered her other choices on several planets, and she had been happiest with the flight suit and light padding that deflected minor blasterfire.

“Then where do you start?”

Hux paused. “I start by making them take notice of me.”

And he did. Once he knew the contacts, boundaries, and where and how Crymorah operated, he began to gather information on low-level operations. Extortion rackets, valued personnel. Facilities and supplies, smugglers they worked with.

And slowly, surely, he began taking his transport around the galaxy and hitting them with his two-man operation. Days turned to weeks, then months. He and Phasma infiltrated buildings, and used droid remotes to take out smuggling ships.  Hux was careful, because doing this with two people was still an incredible risk, but his abundance of caution worked in their favor, and all the missions were successful. He killed and destroyed nearly everything he found, making his intentions visible while concealing his identity.

There were close calls. Phasma was reckless and over-confident, and Hux didn’t have a way to train that out of her. He also watched her back as she took on hired Crymorah muscle and guards during the planetside operations. Hux’s careful information gathering and stakeouts gave them the upper hand, but the situations were still fraught with only two of them. She was usually the best fighter, though she sometimes still hesitated with nonhumanoids, over-thinking their weaknesses. Any enemy would bleed if cut with her weapons, which she still preferred to her blasters.

He made sure that Phasma was never watching his back. He didn’t trust her not to flip and turn herself in to Crymorah, were she to consider the scale of how the syndicate operated versus Hux by himself.

Eventually, they found themselves in a bad situation. There were more guards than Hux had thought, and they were more skilled. Phasma had taken some shots, and someone had stabbed Hux in his cybernetic, rendering it inoperable. They fled after setting fire to the warehouse where rich fabrics were being smuggled into the Mid-Rim to avoid the tariffs. Phasma hated slinking off in the dark. She’d turned on him once they’d run clear of the warehouse district, detouring before going back to Hux’s transport.

“Who is Kylo Ren?” she demanded, bloody, clutching her side as they stayed hidden in the shadows of the buildings. Their filthy flight suits and helmets helped conceal the blood and left them anonymous. Hux hoped no one looked too closely at them.

“My ally,” Hux explained. “A Jedi.” When she showed no reaction, he explained further. “A wizard, a mage. He can hurt people without touching them, kill them with his mind. He can also fight. Better than me, better than you.”

She cocked her head. “Is he looking for you, too?”

Hux pressed his lips together. “Yes. But the organization I used to work for is locked down. He can’t get into it, or get information out of it. He… missed our rendezvous, and I have to find him.”

He could tell that Phasma was mostly satisfied with the lie, but growing weary. The fact of their needing to find Ren was true, but it was taking a long time. Phasma was growing bored of his company, and of their missions.

He did all this slowly. So slowly. He spent a month researching operations, the conditions they’d take place in, to make sure that they were the right kind for himself and Phasma to infiltrate themselves. He hid his own face so his information gathering wasn’t suspicious. He worked his way up, hitting bigger and bigger operations.

Eventually, he started leaving some targets alive. He told them Armitage wanted to make a deal. Armitage was a ghost. He left no trace of himself. He killed many of his informants after he spoke to them, bought others drinks in the seedy bars on the planets where Crymorah hubbed themselves, where Hux would never be found. He sometimes took smuggling jobs himself, as Hux, to make sure he wasn’t suspected. He covered his cybernetic when he hit targets, left it visible when he worked as Hux the smuggler, or did information gathering. It was the most distinctive thing about him, and a distraction, and he made sure to use it to his advantage.

He did all of it slowly. He hated it. It took three years to be safe. To be sure. Phasma seemed mostly content with her situation, while Hux was increasingly not. He replayed his rash decision to leave Ren the Senator over and over again, reminded himself that impatience had landed him here, without an arm, with Phasma as his only friend. Who knew what had happened to Ren in Crymorah. No amount of information gathering had turned up even a hint of Kylo Ren, and as the years went on, Hux was desperate.

The missions kept him occupied, and he reminded himself that the reward for all this meticulous planning, his careful patience, would be Ren. Ren was always happy to see him. He pictured the look on Ren’s face when he laid eyes on Hux, fixed it in his mind as the goal he was working towards.

The nights were the worst. He’d grown accustomed to sleeping with Ren, and had always slept poorly while he was away. Which was… always, now. He slept with his back pressed to the wall of the berth on his transport or in his filthy nondescript room on Nal Hutta, a blanket folded behind himself, hand pressing his tags into his chest through his thin sleeping shirt, and tried to dream that Ren was behind him, sharing the same bed. But the cold, and the emptiness inside his thoughts, were the only things that kept him company now.

He consoled himself, as time went on with no sign of Ren, that Ren couldn’t be dead. Certainly, if whatever magic of Ventu was acting on the idea that their lives were bound… certainly he would know if that bond was broken.

He thought about Ventu a lot. Considered visiting many times, and pleading with the cave, telling it whatever it wanted to hear to stop these fruitless efforts, to give him his old life with Ren back. But the cave, if nothing else, was able to sense a lie, and Hux knew his efforts here weren't exactly fruitless. He made slow but gradual progress to getting what he wanted - a session with someone who would answer his questions about Kylo Ren.

Eventually, he found someone that told him, at the end of a blaster, that Crymorah was willing to listen. So he allowed that person to live, letting them take the details of a scheduled holocall back to whatever master they had. Phasma had been the one holding them at blaster point, because Hux’s hand might have shaken with relief.

When the time came, he made the call from his base on Nal Hutta. He used protocols to scramble his location (nearly unnecessary, as Nal Hutta was notoriously difficult to pinpoint holocalls on), his voice, and his face. But made sure that they could see Phasma standing behind him, her mask off, her distinctive bladed weapons in her hand. She was threatening, and had gained her own reputation. But he wondered if she understood the risk he took by revealing her face.

Then, he started his new game. When a contact picked up, he made the comm a simple thing. “I don’t need to speak to you. I want one of the Syndicate Leaders,” he spoke into the transmission before cutting it.

He sabotaged a large transport, made sure they lost an enormous shipment. When he called the same holonet address again, he asked for a Syndicate Leader. This time, he was transferred in moments.

“I’m not speaking to some scrambled feed. Either you speak to me, or you don’t.” This was a Falleen, with dark eyes and gleaming green skin, a sure sign that he was speaking to someone in authority. It also wore the high collar and rich silk that ensured it was very, very high up in the organization. Hux hesitated a moment before cutting the scramblers, deciding it had come time to reveal himself, that there was no benefit to his masks anymore. There was no recognition in the Falleen’s eyes.

“What can I do for you, Armitage? You are causing us considerable trouble, and have for some time. I think you must want something.”

“Information. All of it stops if I get information.”

The Falleen studied him, its scales glittering in the light. Hux was even more relieved he’d insisted on this secure comm rather than an in-person meeting. He knew he wouldn’t best Crymorah in person without Ren, not even with Phasma. But with a Falleen, it was even more dangerous. He’d only ever spoken to the Falleen leaders of Crymorah via comm. The aliens could control most sentients with some strange scent control, much like Ren's Force coercion, and he’d heard they did it freely.

The Falleen pressed its lips together. “What information, Armitage?”

Hux put his cybernetic arm on the console and leaned against it, staring the Falleen down. “There is a man by the name of Kylo Ren. He was, or is, involved in your organization. I wish to speak to him.”

The Falleen’s eyes narrowed, glittering, the horizontal pupil dilating. “I should have known you were one of his,” it hissed, its body tensing. “What does he want now? He knows the consequences of breaking the agreement.”

Hux digested this, and shook his head. What the hell had Ren done to Crymorah? “I am not involved in whatever deal you have with him. I want to find him. Where is he?”

The Falleen sneered at him, bracing its hands against the table and leaning forward. “ _Not involved with him_ ,” it mocked. “Your methods are exactly the same, except he told us that our smugglers were stealing from us. You actually are stealing from our smugglers. He was just killing them.”

Hux closed his eyes. That was stupid. Not sustainable. He opened them and cut the Falleen off.

“I don’t care what he did to you. I’m trying to locate him. My attacks stopping are as simple as you telling me his current location.”

He could tell the Falleen didn’t care. He knew they were trying to hack his signal. They wouldn’t. Hux had paid well for that, with money he had stolen from Crymorah.

“What guarantee do I have that you’ll stop?”

“None.” Hux smirked. “I have the advantage here. But I can tell you I will, and you can give me his location, and you lose nothing by doing so. I can assure you, I have no interest in what you do.”

He leaned back in the seat, his blood singing in his veins. He had him. He had Ren. It had taken three long, slow years to get to this point. But he had Ren. He saw the Falleen’s mouth turn down in distaste.

“He’s in the Trebor system. Good luck with that.” The Falleen cut the signal.

Hux smirked, turning to look at Phasma. He hated having her stand behind him with her blades. She had become twitchy, more aggressive over the past year. There had only been so much weapons training she could do herself, and Hux had kept himself busy while Phasma grew bored. Among other things, there were spice and death sticks aplenty in Crymorah information hubs. Crymorah always appreciated more customers for their businesses, and Hux had been free with the credits the two of them stole from the syndicate. He'd wanted very badly for her to develop some sort of vice or hobby as a distraction - sex, drinking, holoprogramming habits, the usual.  But the spice made her unpredictable, and even more dangerous. He'd heard it heightened sensory awareness and raised energy levels, depending on what was taken. He guessed the performance enhancement aspect appealed to her. He'd heard it used as a sex aid during shore leave for the same reasons by any number of officers and troopers. He'd often thought about trying it with Ren, but they were rarely planetside together, and they'd never had the opportunity.

Despite his best efforts to discourage her, Phasma had indulged, and continued to do so. He didn’t stop her, she would have simply killed him for trying. Their time together was running out.

“We’ve got him,” he said triumphantly, pushing down his unease with firmness borne of practice. He was always unsure these days, and spent a lot more time reassuring himself about ill-advised, overly bold plans. He could almost always talk himself out of fear, but it haunted him at night right along with Ren’s absence.

Three years. Three years and  _they had him_. He had long ago stopped imagining this moment. Locked himself in his room and despaired. Talked himself down from faster, more rash courses of action. This was dangerous, deadly, and it had to go just right.

It had.

The Trebor System.

Phasma donned her helmet again, not offering him any sort of expression before she did it. “Congratulations. I stopped believing he was real.”

Hux nodded, choosing to ignore her doubt. “Phase two will begin when we meet him. We’ll gather more soldiers for you to train. We’ll take on the First Order leadership. You’ll see. I’ll make you Captain. You’ll have an army. I even have someone in mind for you to execute to get that position.”

Two people. Phasma would enjoy one fight. He almost wanted to go back to Parnassos to find one of those golden beetles for Brendol again. Phasma had been entirely correct with her method of execution the first time.

But Ren had also expressed interest in doing the deed himself, more than once. There was that possibility, too. Or Hux could do it. That would also not be hard.

Ren.

He could hardly believe it. This time, they would do it. They would be together.

 _Our lives are bound_.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
It was not a simple matter. Trebor was not a known system to the Republic, nor was it something he’d run across in his travels in the Unknown Regions and Wild Space. Hux had to ask around again, just as he had when trying to locate Han Solo. He spared a thought for the old smuggler, thought about sending him a message. He would help Hux find this planet, if it existed.

He instead sent one to Senator Organa, who had better connections, including access to Han Solo. It took her nearly two months to find it, with her resources.

And. Of course. Senator Organa sent him the coordinates, and his blood thrummed in his ears and the buzzing emptiness in his thoughts came back to him, after he’d learned to live without Ren in his thoughts for so long. The buzzing echoed and thrummed, painful and nearly blinding and _dissonant._

He didn’t even need to enter the coordinates into the system. Even after… _years_ , he still knew these coordinates better than any other.

Whatever Ren was doing, and Senator Organa still didn’t know, he had established himself on _Starkiller_. Somehow, it had been discovered by someone else (Ren himself, perhaps?), and been given a different name. But Hux knew those coordinates. He’d closed his eyes and nearly put his cybernetic fist through the console displaying Organa’s message.

 _Starkiller_. Of course. He could have saved himself-

Just-

Of course.

Hux pushed down his unease, told himself to be happy. That meant Ren _remembered_. Ren would know him, had probably been looking for him-

_Why hadn’t he found him, in the First Order?_

-and this would be a simple matter.

But it of course wasn’t, at first. Organa warned him that whatever Ren was doing, it was dangerous. Along with the coordinates, she was told there was an extensive orbital defense system-

_a planetary shield, and Hux had to stop himself from laughing, because he knew how to beat it-_

-and that he needed permission to enter. He needed to ask around in the vicinity for that, because there were also nearby sympathizers for whatever it was that Ren was doing.

Hux frowned. Ren didn’t know how to make Starkiller, wouldn't be able to replicate it without Hux and the First Order. Hux was sure of that. But was he trying? Was he doing something else? Hux had managed not to think about this, speculate about what Ren had decided to do on his own, away from the influence of Hux and his family. Hux found he couldn’t imagine it. But this was…

Disconcerting.

So he went, and gathered information one more time. It took three planet hops and nearly another month before he could get authorization codes to work on Trebor-I, or the planet formerly known as WS-19557 and Starkiller. All the cantinas and ports he had asked in were hostile. He stuck next to Phasma, who was even more hostile. Her patience was running out. He would free her soon. This was their last mission and he was out of the right words to say to her.

But her hostility was effective, and they got what they needed. When they cleared the hyperspace jump that got them to the outside defenses of Trebor-I, Phasma was docile, seated next to him in the copilot’s seat, as she often was when they approached a new planet. She had never gotten tired of this, watching them break atmo and enter a new place. It was charming, or would have been, had Phasma been a more expressive person.

He could see the extensive orbital defense system surrounding the planet, three metal rings that appeared to completely circle the planet, visible from the end of the hyperspace jump to its surface. Hux entered the authorization codes he had received, hoping that they were valid, though he made sure that he remained outwardly calm in front of Phasma. He got a green all-clear, but was still nervous as they sped past the defensive rings. There would be no reason not to use them on any stranger. Hux would have.

They didn’t. As they skimmed the surface, Hux noted dully that the planet still appeared to be uninhabited. Nearly the entire surface of the planet was covered in a very hearty species of evergreen that grew in thick forests broken up by freshwater lakes and severe thunderstorms. They had been snowstorms soon after they’d begun terraforming Starkiller, but they had originally been rain, when the system had still had a sun large enough to heat the surface.

Hux set the autopilot and watched the trees go by in the viewport. He was… a mess. The years of work had led to this, and he had no way of knowing what to expect, no way to plan ahead for every contingency. He tried to calm himself, tried telling himself that Ren was down here. He’d given his name, his real profile. Ren would _know_  him, he would remember, if he’d bothered to set up on Starkiller.

But still, dread filled him as he set down his transport, opened up the ramp. The dissonant ringing in his head had made itself known, and he’d not managed to suppress it since Organa’s message. It rang dully through his thoughts now. He was distracted, and not in his best form. He grabbed his blaster, and made Phasma walk down the ramp in front of him.

He saw two guards waiting at the bottom of the ramp. They were heavily cybernetically enhanced, custom jobs, high-quality cybernetic limbs designed to look like antique droid parts. His mouth opened. They were _aesthetic_ , not real antiques, but top of the line equipment meant to appear as such. He'd never even heard of such a thing.

He’d never bothered to replace his own aging cybernetic. He could well afford a better limb, but the older one attracted more attention, was more of a distraction due to its age. He’d gotten used to it and managed to become left-handed in the meantime. The pain was better, more manageable, but he'd never been able to to rid himself of the sensation of moving the natural arm along with the cybernetic, that he had two right arms now.  When that got worse, usually when he tried to operate the cybernetic too fast, there was pain.

These men had… quite a few cybernetic replacements. There were thick bands across each of their chests with controls and displays set into the surface of the metal, for what purpose Hux could not guess. One guard had two cybernetic replacement legs, the other had one flesh arm. Both had implants wrapped around their bald heads, along with extensive tattooing. Both had one eye replaced with an implant. Both also wore heavy armor of a type Hux had never seen before, gray sheets of durasteel painted in white and red and with rivets along the seams. He eyed it wearily. It would not stop plasma bolts, so it must serve some other, more sinister purpose.

As Hux made to follow Phasma across the hangar, the two guards stepped between the two of them and stopped him, dropping long laz-spears to block his path. One sneered at him. All of the guard’s teeth had been replaced with durasteel. The low light of the bay glinted on them, and Hux kept his eyes locked on the cold red cybernetic eye, keeping the fear off his face, making his gaze just as cold.

“I’m authorized to land.”

“Because I made it so,” Phasma said, walking back up to the spear barrier. She did not remove her helmet. Hux fastened his gaze on her, dread twisting in his stomach. He tightened his grip on his blaster. He was certain he could take out the guards, but he was equally certain Phasma would kill him before he could.

She shrugged. “I found out that Kylo Ren knew you were pursuing him. He had no idea who you were. I told a contact we would come if given codes. I could walk if they took you.”

Hux nodded, but said nothing. Part of him raged against the idea of Phasma turning him over like this. He had expected the blade through his front, but never the one in his back. Not from her. Not her style.

That wasn’t what hurt, though. _He had no idea who you were_.

That was a lie. Either Ren’s or Phasma’s. Ren would know him anywhere.

He narrowed his eyes, suddenly less threatened by whatever it was that Phasma was trying to do here. “Were you so tired of my company?”

Phasma tipped her head to the side, the low lights of the bare hangar catching on the scratched, dented surface of her black fight helmet. “You weren’t going anywhere. This Kylo Ren quest was a farce. But it was your farce.”

She held the blaster he had bought her three years ago just in front of his face, across the laz-spear barrier. The blaster was custom, made of blue metal, much larger than his own, but she was a deadly shot with it even if it hadn’t been centimeters from his head.

Well. He glanced around the hangar, dimly lit, empty save for his own transport, the two guards, and Phasma. If she wanted to kill him, she had him.

But _Ren_. He was _so close_. There had to be something else to offer her, something he would think of if he could keep her talking. He’d seen this planet collapse into a black hole and had survived it. He would not be shot by Phasma on its surface now.

“Ren knows me on sight. If you wait until we go before him, he’ll reward-”

“Armitage,” she interrupted, using his name. He stopped himself from flinching. He’d never heard her call him by a name before. “No. He’s already rewarding me. And you are not part of it.”

“Phasma, _please_ ,” he pleaded, his voice rising. “I’ve been looking for years, we’re here-”

“I don’t care.”

She didn’t. It was that simple. He opened his mouth, determined that if he only kept talking, delaying long enough, _Ren was here somewhere_ , and he would somehow sense-

One of the guards, the one that stood much taller on his cybernetic legs, backhanded her with his metal-gloved fist. She stumbled backwards, but didn’t fall.

“No. He gets to speak to him. He specifically requested it.”

Phasma turned to him. “Part of the deal was that he was executed. I assumed that happened now, to my satisfaction.”

“Be lucky you walk away.”

Phasma drew one of her long blades, quicker than Hux could track it, and he closed his eyes, thinking of what must have been her family on Parnassos, thinking of his father.

He heard a sound, and looked up to see Phasma’s blade destroyed, shattered to the hilt from where she'd tried to strike the metal armor of the guard's arm.

“You’ll need to be faster than that if you want to beat the Metal Brotherhood. You haven’t been initiated.” The guard with flesh arms knocked on Hux’s cybernetic right arm with a gauntleted fist. “He has, at least. You can go.”

 _Metal Brotherhood.  Initiated_.  What did that mean?  Was he referring-

Were the cybernetics a _status symbol_ here?

No.  That couldn't be right.

Hux couldn't think about that right now. Phasma shook her head, drawing her other blade. “Not without seeing him dead.”

From behind her, something fired, and she fell forward, hitting the floor face-down and twitching in place. Hux looked up and saw a massive soldier, at least three meters tall, in armor that encased his entire body. It was heavy mechanized durasteel armor, dented and scratched and well-used. He could hear motors grinding as the massive suit moved. Hux couldn’t tell if it was a droid, an alien, or a man inside the suit.

“Take him to the High Priest. This one can wake up and deal with reality later.”

Hux looked at Phasma on the floor. She would want to kill him. It would eat her alive. She wouldn’t get very far past… he glanced up at the huge soldier. Its armor was painted violet, and had a symbol he didn’t recognize on the chest and shoulder.

She wouldn’t get very far past whatever that was.

He hung his head, and allowed the two guards (thankfully not the suit of armor, _what was that_ ) escort him elsewhere.

They took a transport to a different building, and Hux watched the scenery fly by. The transport had a transparisteel dome over the whole compartment. He was cuffed, but not disarmed, and didn’t struggle against it. Phasma had turned on him, but it was of no consequence. She had delivered him to Ren and taken herself out of the picture, which was exactly what he wanted to happen.

He looked through the clear dome, rain lashing against it and blurring his view, blowing back as they accelerated across the surface of the planet. He knew what time it was, and the cloud cover was thin, despite the rain. He could clearly make out the sun he had personally destroyed in another life.

Where they appeared to be heading, hopefully wherever Ren was, was where the Command Center had been on Starkiller.

He closed his eyes and decided not to look at anything else on Starkiller.

He felt the transport slow, then dip lower. They went deep, deeper, before pulling to a slow stop. He kept his eyes closed as he was handled roughly out of the transport, all but drug along. He didn’t open his eyes. His dread increased. He couldn’t calm himself. His breathing came up short.

But the buzzing, empty place in his head began to fill and silence. He didn’t sense anything, nothing filling it up, but… it felt calm, and both the pain and the distraction had vanished.

 _Ren_.

He felt a tear slip out, which was ridiculous. He raised his cuffed hands to wipe it away. He didn’t open his eyes.

He was thrown to the ground, breathing hard, eyes closed, extremely conscious of what he looked like. His hair was long, and he hadn’t cut it. He should have. It was tied back, probably needed cleaned, it always looked too dark like this. He’d earned himself a nasty scar across the left side of his neck, a burn from a plasma weapon, an ugly thing with blistering and scarring that he didn’t fix for the same reason he hadn’t fixed his arm. He hadn’t worn the high collar he sometimes used to cover it to look respectable, though. He wore a flight suit, torn and stained from all the missions he’d been on. He’d given up on boot maintenance, which was hard, but he stood out in polished boots. His hand were calloused, the nails broken and bitten, and the other was the cybernetic, which he was suddenly self-conscious about. He was filthy. He looked like the trader trash he had become over the course of more than three years. He’d lost weight, and knew he looked pale, skeletal, unwell.

“You.”

The voice was deep, unmistakable, and Hux felt his presence fill his head, cold and painful but undeniably _him_.

He opened his eyes, and saw Kylo Ren standing at the foot of a dais, a wild look of disbelief on his face.  The goal Hux had been working toward for three years, and his expression was exactly how he'd pictured it.


	15. Part Three: Laüstic - Chapter 4

**Twelve years ago…**

 

Deeply asleep, Hux was disturbed by the cold that seeped into his nightmares. He was kneeling on deck of a derelict starship, and the cold had frozen the skin of his bare hands and feet to the floor. The thin, ill-fitting uniform he was wearing was inadequate for the cold or anything else. The telltale hiss of slow depressurization echoed ominously through the dark, frigid hallway. It was so cold his tongue was frozen and swollen in his mouth, his lips had sealed together and could not be pulled apart.  He couldn't make his voice work, or any part of his body move. Blind panic swept through him, and he scrambled for a way to survive. He refused to fall victim to an old ship.

Only pain and a building pressure in his head brought him out of the nightmare, jerking from sleep and taking a deep, reassuring breath of the oxygen. Blind for a moment in the near-darkness of his room, he noted that the terrible cold was not the nightmare, but existed in reality. Adrenaline surged through him, and he tensed to run, wondering how the systems had failed, whether they'd been sabotaged. The emergency systems weren't active, so it had to be quite bad.

He tried to roll over, but found he was held in place by someone crouched above him in bed. That was worse, because they were being attacked and the enemy was here, in the room with him, pale face and dark eyes glinting in the five percent light. An intruder, heavy, straddling him in his bed, in his private rooms, in the middle of his off-shift.

His hand jerked automatically to his blaster, kept on his bedside table out of old habit. But the form was faster, and Hux’s wrist was quickly pinned above his head. Hux struggled, panic rising up to choke him, unable to shake the chill wracking his body or throw his attacker off-

“Ben,” his voice cracked on the name. Ben, back from Snoke after six months away. That was nearly as hard to accept as an attacker in his room. But Ben’s invasiveness, and the feelings of despair and disappointment echoing through Hux’s mind that were not his own, finally registered through his own panic, and they were unique to Ben Solo. He went limp beneath Ben, his body and mind still primed for a threat. Ben was still, staring at him through the darkness, one very cold, calloused hand gripping Hux’s wrist above his head.

It was cold, so cold, and his first impulse was to ask about that. He took a breath, momentarily speechless beneath Ben, in his presence and surprised by it after so long. He’d planned what to say, how to apologize, had imagined this moment over and over after the meeting with Snoke had gone so poorly.

But it had never been like this, with Ben breaking into his room like an assassin. Lost for his other words, Hux let his frustrations out first.

“Six months,” he spat, twisting beneath Ben again in an attempt to sit up. Ben leaned his free arm across Hux’s chest, pushing him down into the mattress. “You were gone for six months. I didn’t know if you were alive or dead. What are you doing here?”

Part of Hux had given Ben up after so many months, thinking that Snoke must have killed him. He’d fingered the focusing crystal over and over again, willing it to bring Ben to him once again. He did it mostly at night, without acknowledging the implications.

And here he was. Back again, just like the first time, when they’d gone a year without speaking and Ben had appeared in his hangar, killing his Troopers. Except now, it had been another half year without a word, presumably within the purview of the Order. If Ben was alive, staying out of touch after what had happened was monstrous. Hux was tired of these dramatic back-and-forth partings and meetings.

Hux recognized that he was getting angry to hide other things, and he tried to stop. It was hard to regulate his emotions though, after the nightmare and the panic, and with Ben's thoughts and his own tangled so thoroughly in his own mind. There was also the awful cold, cutting straight through him, stealing the breath from his lungs.

Ben’s face was still an indistinct blur in the darkness, his expression unreadable, but Hux could feel how his own words cut Ben, the sadness and disappointment, and felt the anger rising up to fill their place.

“I don’t have any other place, do I?” Ben responded, after another few moments of staring.

“You have Snoke,” Hux bit out, “And apparently no access to a comm. I would have appreciated a message after… what happened, Ben. I thought you were dead.”

It wasn't the right thing to say. He clamped his mouth shut and shook his head, not letting himself speak again. The cold was a distraction.  He was shivering, and his skin was going numb and his muscles were aching and locking. There was Ben, and the cold, and he was having trouble deciding what one had to do with the other.

Ben cocked his head, and the low light caught in his eye, making him look more than a little unhinged. “No. I didn’t have access to a comm.”

Hux let the corners of his mouth turn down. Ben’s voice was taciturn, strange. He was different than he had been, even after he’d been broken and changed by betrayal. For a moment, Hux had the sensation that he had been correct, that there was a stranger in his bed, pinning him to the mattress. His mind scrambled desperately for Ben’s presence in his thoughts, the roil of his emotions, and he shivered harder.

“How did you get access to my quarters?”

“I’m Snoke’s Apprentice,” Ben answered in a sing-song voice that set Hux on edge. “I have access to everything the Supreme Leader does.”

“I’m sure the Supreme Leader doesn’t have access to my quarters.”

“I do.”

“ _Ben_ ,” Hux tried, putting all the force of an order behind it. His body wouldn’t stop shaking, he was unable to suppress it. He suddenly realized that the cold was _Ben_ , that Hux was feeling whatever this cold was through their connection, and it was smothering and killing him. The thought that Ben had gained such a power and was unable to control it was briefly terrifying, and he shook harder. He ordered himself not to be afraid of Ben.

This was all wrong, but he didn't understand how. He couldn’t _think_ , and he blamed the chill of Ben’s presence inside him. “Whatever you’re doing, stop.”

Ben scowled, sitting up. Hux could feel whatever had been inside him recede, the ache and chill suddenly gone. He willed himself calm, reminding himself that this was Ben Solo, that Ben had come back to him again. He brought his arms down to his sides, squeezed his eyes shut, then pushed himself up in bed, leaning against the short headboard, his legs still underneath Ben. He ordered the lights up to thirty percent, hating that he’d only been wearing a pair of shorts to sleep in, feeling ridiculously exposed as Ben’s eyes fell briefly to his narrow chest and ID tags. He crossed his arms and studied Ben in turn.

Ben had completely withdrawn from his thoughts, and Hux could no longer read his moods. He also couldn’t read Ben’s face. His skin was pale, and his eyes looked sunken and haunted. His hair was tangled and matted, and Hux could smell a kind of stale mustiness. This man was a stranger to Hux, though he had to admit to himself that he’d only really known Ben for a matter of weeks. But Ben had never been distant, and whatever Snoke had done to him seemed to have sent him… elsewhere. His eyes began darting around the room, and he looked distracted and twitchy, as if waiting for an opponent to leap from the darkness, a moment away from violence. Hux uncrossed his arms and worked his fingers into the sheets, unsure what to do.

“You came back.”

“Where else can I go?”

As if Hux's bed were his last resort.  Hux pressed his lips, and didn’t bother hiding his annoyance. “How long will you be here this time?”

Ben looked at something over Hux’s head, and then back into his face. His twitching readiness shifted to something more steady and predatory, and he folded his gloved hands in his lap. Seeing the gloves reminded Hux again of how little he was wearing, the disparity in their states of dress, their size, and their strength, should Ben suddenly turn on him. He refused the ridiculous urge to cover himself again. Ben had seen him more exposed than any other person. They’d had sex.

They could have sex again.  He had a sudden flash of Ben, fully clothed and filthy, pressing him naked into the mattress, the gloved hands on his cock, his hip.

He shook his head to dismiss it and studied Ben, trying to decide if Ben had seen the brief fantasy. Likely not. His eyes were only hard and angry, a response to Hux's annoyed tone and dismissive question. “I’ll stay until Snoke calls me again.”

That effectively quashed Hux’s annoyance, and reminded him of all the guilt he’d been suffering in the last six months. Along with his carefully composed apologies. He leaned forward, his fingers tightening in the sheets. “I didn’t know- I didn’t know Snoke was a Force user. None of us did. I wouldn’t have… taken you there, if I had known that-” He shut his mouth, clenched his jaw, and couldn’t get the rest of it out. Ben wasn’t in his head, but the cold might be worth it, to make Ben understand without having to stumble through it out loud.

He tried again. “I never would have taken you to that monster’s feet. I never would have… _given_  you to him like that.”

“I know,” Ben answered bitterly, looking to the side. “He bragged about hiding it from everyone in the First Order, before he realized… he could have hurt me with it.”

“Hurt you?”

Ben looked at him again. “Snoke is… different than- My old teacher. He studies the Dark side of the Force.”

When Ben didn’t elaborate, Hux pushed him. “I don’t understand what that means. How is it different?”

“With… before.” His expression tightened, and his posture tensed. Hux put his palms on Ben’s thighs to steady him, and could feel how taut the muscles were. “With the Light, a clear and calm mind facilitates strength. But with the Dark, it’s… passion. Anger. Pain. Fear.”

Training that involved those things specifically. Hux’s mouth went dry, and he remembered his own training, which had plenty of all of that. But it wasn't the same thing that he'd seen with Snoke and Ben. That was…

“Snoke tortures you?” It came out tight and strange, and he swallowed, realizing his hands were tight on Ben’s thighs. He loosened his fingers.  Ben was freezing.

“Not torture.” Ben shook his head, and his eyes went distant again. “Just… training. In the Dark side of the Force.”

“I still don’t understand. How could Snoke have… hurt you, by telling you that the Order knew he was a Force user?”

Ben’s eyes focused, and he met Hux's stare. “He would have lied, and told me you gave me to him knowing what would have happened.”

“Lied? But I-” The denial was quick, and Hux’s looked away for a moment, pressing his lips together and bringing the back of his hand to his mouth.

Then what Ben had said registered. It would have hurt him, the lie, because he trusted Hux. Hux looked at him again. “I know nothing of Snoke, Ben. He’s the Supreme Leader, and that was the first time I’d spoken to him. Don’t let him lie to you about me, ever. Don’t believe a word he says. Even if… even if it helps your… training. I don’t want it to be that.” He paused, dropping his hand back to Ben’s thighs, and studying the contrast between his own smooth, pale skin and the gray fabric of Ben’s pants.

“I never would have brought you to him if I knew that would happen. Believe me.”

Rather than reassure Ben as intended, or serve as the heartfelt apology that Hux hoped it would, the reply seemed to make Ben tense, and his expression twisted into something ugly.

“And what if you had known he was a Force user, Hux? What if he had ordered it?”

Hux clenched his jaw, and he felt a twist in his chest, an ache in the pit of his stomach. It took him a moment to reply, to think of what to say to that. He held Ben's glare as he considered it. “We would have thought of something. It would have been different.”

“Would it have? Really? You wouldn’t have followed an order from the Supreme Leader of the First Order? You, his most fanatical and devoted dog?”

Hux’s throat tightened, and he was suddenly furious. He opened his mouth to say something that he would never be able to take back, that would change things between them. But he closed it, and considered a moment. Those weren’t Ben Solo’s words. That didn’t sound like him.

“Snoke told you that,” he said in a flat voice.

Ben looked away, and Hux felt a twinge of distant shame, the remnants of Ben’s emotion through their blocked connection. Hux was alarmed, suddenly, that this being at the head of the First Order that he’d never met before was feeding a kidnapped Ben Solo lies about him. It was as bizarre as it was unsettling, and Hux hated it.

“Ben.” He pulled himself into Ben’s lap, laying his palms on either side of Ben’s face. “I follow orders. This is a military. You-” He stopped himself, flinching in distaste. “ _Snoke_  isn’t wrong about that. But I’m good at what I do. It’s how I survived, how I got my rank. And I can choose to follow orders any way I like. Do you understand?”

When Ben wouldn’t look at him, Hux squeezed his face (his cheeks were rough, there were several days worth of beard on them), and tipped his chin up until Ben looked at him. Hux held him in place until he nodded silently.

“Good.”

He remembered again how Ben had made it sound like Hux’s bed was a last resort, and he sighed, annoyed, sliding off Ben’s lap and leaning back against the headboard and wall. There was silence, and it stretched for a full minute. Hux didn’t know what to say, wasn’t sure what else Ben wanted or needed. Hux tried to feel him out.

“Snoke is training you in… using the Force?”

Ben dropped his gaze to his lap, twisting his hands together. “Yes. I’m better at this training than I was as a Jedi.”

“You’re more powerful?”

“Yes.” His expression hardened, and he met Hux’s gaze defiantly. Hux let the corner of his mouth turn up.

“It’s what you wanted.”

It was cruel, maybe, reminding Ben what he had done, where he had come from, that he’d made this decision himself. That it was Ben’s choice to be in Hux’s bed. Ben dropped his gaze again. “Yes.”

When Ben said nothing else, and the silence lengthened again, Hux was still at a loss. But Ben was here, and he’d been gone for six months, and Hux could admit to himself that he’d missed him, worried for him. He wanted more from him now. They weren't connected as they had been. Was it Snoke's doing?

He tried to picture what Ben’s training was like, and couldn’t. Anger. Pain. Fear. What was that like in Force training? He knew what it looked like well enough, but he doubted very much that what Ben was doing was anything like what he’d been through.

“So is Snoke fighting you? Taunting you?” He suddenly remembered Snoke’s mockery, and his own anger flared. He supposed Snoke must be good at stoking Ben’s powers, if that was how it was done.

Ben wouldn’t look at him. “Yes.”

Hux waited, then spoke. “Will you tell me nothing else, after being gone for six months and breaking into my room?”

“I don’t want to talk about the training,” Ben replied sharply, looking up at Hux, his posture tensing again, but his thoughts at least present.

Hux huffed. “There’s no use avoiding it. It happened. If it’s made you stronger, it’s a crucible. You’ll be better for it when it’s over.”

“I’m better now,” Ben insisted, his hands tightening in his lap, and Hux read the anger plain enough, felt the cold and pressure seeping over his skin again. He ignored it.

“Are you stronger now? As strong as you can be? Have you killed Snoke for the insult?”

Ben looked taken aback. “Killed him?”

Hux nodded. “If he has nothing else to offer you, kill him.”

Ben looked troubled suddenly, suspicious. “Isn’t it treason to ask me to kill the leader of your organization?”

Hux thought of his father, thought of the misery of his childhood. “I owe him no loyalty, and neither do you. If he is not teaching you-” The insults came back to him, the pain, the _betrayal_  of having Ben taken, and knowing that he was inexplicably mocked- “Then he is useless.”

Ben’s expression shuttered. “Do you mean he’s useless to you? You want me to kill him _for you_?”

Hux shook his head, his jaw clenched. “I want you to kill him _for you_. He-” Hux stopped, shook his head, desperately wanted Ben in his thoughts so he didn’t have to say it aloud.

When Ben sat, a skeptical look on his face, Hux decided he had to be clear about this. “He should not have done that to you. If he puts you through suffering, if it is for your betterment, you should suffer. But at the end of suffering, the tormentor can be put down. That is the lesson. That is what you need to tell yourself, to take everything that Snoke has to give, and then kill him for his cruelty at the end of it.”

Ben stared at him, his expression shifting to something like horror, and Hux swallowed. He realized what it sounded like out loud, that it was heartless, ruthless. He knew Ben didn’t have the same things in him that Hux did, that they did not share his darker thoughts. Hux had shown Ben too much again, the treason, the ugliness. So he tried to apologize, one more time.

“He should not have done that to you.” It came out in a low voice, almost a whisper. He looked down into his lap, but did not otherwise adjust his posture. “I wouldn’t have let that happen to you, if I had known. I swear it.”

Ben snorted, and Hux looked up, offended. But he held his tongue when he saw the faraway look on Ben’s face again, as if he wasn’t with Hux at all. “He would have found me anyway,” Ben said, his tone equally bitter. “And you couldn’t have stopped him if he had. He’s done… worse than what you’ve seen, since then.”

Hux sat up straighter, his fingers tightening, the rage washing through him. “What has he done?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Ben turned away, still looking distant. “I don’t want to talk about the training.”

“Then why did you come back at all, Ben?” Ben’s gaze came back to Hux. “You don’t comm me in six months, and you show up in the middle of the night, after your training, and don’t want to talk about that, or anything else. If you have nothing to say, you can leave,” he snapped, suddenly defensive, crossing his arms in front of his bare, exposed chest. He looked away, nailed his gaze to the shadow of the door behind Ben. “You were going to leave again anyway, I’m sure. I know better than to think you’ll stay.”

He felt Ben’s big hands against his hips, and he felt himself getting pulled down into the bed again, Ben’s weight on top of him. His face was above Hux’s, the knotted, tangled mess of his hair hanging down to frame it. Hux could feel how cold he was beneath his clothes, as cold as the icy presence he felt throughout his body, the pressure of Ben’s Force. He felt Ben in his thoughts again, a painful stab, the sense of an overwhelming need that was not his own.

“I’m staying this time, Hux.” His voice was quiet, difficult to parse, and he’d leaned his face into Hux’s neck so that Hux couldn’t see his expression. But he felt the cold of Ben’s nose, the chill of his lips as he pressed a kiss into Hux’s neck. The need in his mind wasn’t the desire he was so familiar with, belonging to both himself and Ben, when they were together. It was a kind of howling emptiness, a desperate all-consuming need to be _wanted_. To _belong_.

Hux clenched his jaw and closed his eyes, trying to push down absolutely everything that particular revelation did to him. 'Belonging' was one of the main themes of their recruitment propaganda, and was a concept Hux lectured on at length. New citizens of the Order had a place, and it was with the Order, who helped others find their own place.

But this was different.  This was sincere. And no one… _opened themselves_  like that in the culture of the military. No one _ever_  needed Hux like this, though he always told them they did. And Ben Solo certainly didn't _need_ Hux. There was nothing that Hux could give him that Ben couldn't get for himself.

But still, he was here, because it was Hux he wanted. The force of Ben’s emotions, his _want_ , physically hurt him, settled into the core of Hux’s mind in a way that Hux knew was permanent and irreversible.

Hux buried his fingers into the mess of Ben's hair, twisted slightly in his grip to feel it.  There was this, too, which Hux had missed so much after they'd been apart the first time. This closeness. Ben's touch, which was alarmingly frigid but still something Hux craved. Even Ben's hair, which was a mess, Hux found he couldn't stop touching it. It always reminded him of the first time he'd done it, how badly he'd wanted to the first time they'd met.

“Hux,” Ben continued, his voice still muffled into Hux’s neck. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

A moment ago, Hux would have found this offensive, the implication that Ben only wanted him because he didn’t have anything else. Now Hux only tugged at the tangles in his hair.

“Good. Stay here.”

He felt Ben shift, his full weight resting on Hux’s chest. Ben was even bigger than he had been when he left, more muscular, heavier. He pushed the breath from Hux, and the sensation of it sat low in his belly, an entirely inappropriate reaction that Hux tried to dismiss. Ben’s lips nudged against Hux’s ear, and he whispered his reply.

“I’m afraid of what I’ve done. I can’t go back. I made the wrong choice.”

Hux shifted, pushing Ben onto his side, but keeping his arm around Ben’s neck, his fingers in his hair. He looked into Ben’s face, which was still cold and lost, but at least present and looking to Hux for answers.

“Stay here. Learn what you can from Snoke, if he is teaching you. Move forward. And afterwards, you will always come back to me, and I will always tell you that you made the right choice. Never doubt it.”

The presence in his mind suddenly warmed, and the pain abated. One of Ben’s gloved hands came up to Hux’s face, and he closed his eyes, pressed their foreheads together.

_It’s that easy for you. You make a decision, and that’s your reality. You believe what you say. How do you not understand that you’re trapped here, just like I am?_

Hux’s fingers tightened in Ben’s hair. “I completed my own training, and learned that the way through is with a goal. If the goal is impossible, make a different goal.” He closed his mouth, and gave too much of himself again, though with Ben’s ever-warming presence in his mind, it was easier.

_I’ve seen what hopelessness can do. I’ve seen people give up. That’s not what I want._

Aloud, “You don’t know what it is to be trapped. I’m not that, anymore.”

Ben pulled Hux closer and buried his face in Hux’s neck again. He was beginning to warm against Hux’s body, the terrible chill banishing completely.

”I'm trapped, whether you'll admit it or not. I want to leave, I want to get away from here, and I don’t care how. But-” The sharp, painful twinge in Hux's mind again, even with the warmth still spreading. He could feel Ben’s despair, his frustration, his anger.

 _-I can’t leave you here in this terrible place by yourself. I don’t understand. As soon as I met you, I was_ -

 _I know_ , Hux tried, feeling Ben struggling with the thought.

"You don't." Ben pulled back far enough to study Hux's face. "I love you, Hux. I can't stop myself from feeling it. It happened as soon as I saw you, but I didn't understand it. I still don't understand it. But I need to be with you, and you're here. Do you understand?"

Hux understood, and only a lifetime of training kept his eyes locked with Ben's. His pulse hammered in his throat, and now he felt feverish all over. 

Of course he understood. He was the one that followed Ben Solo in the holos, found every scrap of information about him. Hux was the one that went to Republic City to meet him. Even after so much time, he still couldn't believe that Ben Solo had given him any of his time, let alone... this. Himself.

Hux couldn't think of a thing to say in response to this, to any of this. Nothing that would reassure, or acknowledge what this meant to both of them. Words failed.

When Hux said nothing, Ben's face went back to Hux's neck, and he continued. _You’re the one that holds me. Through all those months of training, the- pain, all of it, I could feel you tangled up inside me, and I can’t be free. And I don't want to be, You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. But. This is difficult._

“It _hurts_ ,” he said aloud, and twisted his head. Hux felt the messy tangles of hair press into his cheek, and the hot tears that came from Ben’s eyes.

Hux still didn't know what to say. So he rolled onto his side and pulled Ben’s face to his chest, and let Ben hold him around the waist. This time, he let the silence stretch, long enough that the lights in his bedroom dimmed again.

He bent his face into Ben’s disgusting hair and left it there.

 _I want you_ , he said into the depths of his mind, hoping that Ben would hear it through… whatever anguish he was feeling right now, enough to choke Hux with it too. _Remember that. I want all of it. And I’ll show you the way forward_.

Mercifully, Ben fell asleep, exhausted. Hux stayed awake, staring into the low light of his room, and he made plans.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
Hux woke Ben early, and pushed his appointments back to give himself time to do what needed to be done. He drug Ben, still exhausted and in an openly black mood, to the therapeutic baths, where Hux could abuse his authority and book a private bathing suite meant for those recovering from severe injury.

“You said it hurts,” he muttered, shoving Ben forward, scowling and still half asleep, to strip him. Hux had foregone his own 'fresher routine in order to be with Ben, and putting on a clean uniform after not having showered made his skin crawl. Once Ben was naked, he stripped his own clean uniform off to wash him.

He got Ben into the bath and scrubbed his hair and skin, taking care to avoid several new wounds. He didn’t ask where they had come from. One of them looked as if it had been left to fester, and Ben hissed as Hux probed it gently.

Once Ben was thoroughly cleaned, Hux had them both rinse off under water from the regular 'fresher spray, taking care of his own ablutions perfunctorily. He dried them both, then ordered a droid to take Ben's measurements and order the exact type of rankless gray uniform he'd had before. As they waited for it to arrive, he took care of Ben’s hair, brushing it and making sure he looked presentable. He briefly imagined Ben with a regulation new recruit shave, and frowned. Ben's hair was too long for regulation, but no one would order the Supreme Leader's apprentice to cut his hair.

Remembering the disparity of the night before, he left his tunic off to groom Ben. While Ben was in a full gray uniform, gloves included, Hux stood over him in suspenders and undershirt, wondering if Ben would say anything.

Ben, whose mood was still dark, didn’t notice, and complained through the entire bathing ritual. “What’s the point of this?”

“Are you just going to strut around the ship filthy, dressed in rags?”

“No one will notice.”

“No one will notice, in an organization where everyone wears a clean uniform every day?”

Ben’s lips thinned, and his expression darkened. “It doesn’t matter.”

“What are you even doing on board the _Finalizer_? Do you have a job, or should I find tasks for you?”

Ben turned his head, and hissed when the comb caught one of his ears. “Watch it,” he said sharply, and Hux suppressed a comment about the size of his ears, very patiently continuing to comb the tangles out.

“I’m at the Supreme Leader’s command. He will summon me again when the time for training is right. Until then, I’m to explore the implications of my new life, following the strength of the Dark side.”

Hux couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “That sounds very important. Can I have you do that while working on combat training with the fresh Troopers?”

It was an idea Hux had while watching Ben spar with the Troopers in his first weeks with the Order. He’d been good at it, and Hux wondered how he would be as an instructor in his own hand-to-hand combat techniques, or at least in ways to counter them. Ben looked at him, and some of the tension went out of his shoulders. “Yes.”

Hux’s eyes went to Ben’s face briefly, then away, but he congratulated himself. He had worried Ben would be a weeping, hopeless mess after last night. He felt guilty for the assumption, because Ben Solo was obviously stronger than that. But it had looked so much like giving up. Hux had prepared himself for the eventuality this morning.

“Excellent. I’ll make the arrangements.” Hux stepped back, gesturing for Ben to stand. The uniform fit well, and it looked good on Ben. It helped that Ben was the most physically imposing person in an Officer’s uniform on the _Finalizer_ \- most were, like Hux, more likely to be under or overweight, and not as physically fit as Ben.

Hux allowed himself to stare for a few moments, then crossed his arms and nodded. “You look the part. The Troopers will respect you like this.”

“Respect me?” He raised his arm, frowning, then looked over at Hux. “I don’t need them to respect me because of what I’m wearing. I want them to respect me because I have something to teach them.”

Hux opened his mouth to explain that appearance was part of the command structure. They were all conditioned that way. Then he closed it, thinking that the explanation would not be helpful. Amusement flashed across Ben’s features, and Hux ached to see it, that flash of happiness after the misery of the night before. But he knew he would regret whatever came next.

“I can read your mind, you know. You don’t have to hide whatever evil manipulation you’ve built into the system from me.”

He felt himself flush, a reaction he had long ago learned to control. “That wasn’t my-” he began, then closed his mouth, furious.

“Some of it was.” Ben took a step forward, even more amused. He raised a gloved hand to his face, then frowned, flexing his fingers to make the leather creak and studying it absently.

“But I can’t do combat training in this uniform. I can’t move in it.”

Hux waved impatiently. “I can’t very well dress you in Stormtrooper armor.”

Something dark briefly passed over Ben's features. “No, you can’t.”

“Well, what do you want to wear?” Hux could tell they needed to avoid… that, the Stormtrooper armor, whatever that issue was. Ben was the son of the Heroes of the Rebellion, and Hux hated the thought of delicately navigating whatever emotional bantha shit was tied up in that. Guilt, or whatever else it was. That was a problem for another day, and he could see Ben’s expression darken further as Hux contemplated it.

“What? Do you want to wear _Jedi robes_?”

Ben scowled. “The rags I was wearing earlier were well-suited to combat training.”

“Oh, for-” Hux clenched his jaw, giving himself a second to speak. “Try this,” he said, gesturing up and down Ben’s height, indicating the uniform, “and see if you like it.”

“I won’t,” Ben returned petulantly.

“I’m sure you won’t.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
It took all of three days for Hux to realize that Ben was very good at training the Troopers, and would also give him no peace about his attire. He kept tearing the uniforms at the shoulders and collars, and Hux swore it was intentional. In his better moods, Ben claimed that the Officer uniforms were not meant to accommodate anyone as muscular as himself. Hux never dignified these claims with a response.

Ben was also harsh on the Troopers. He beat them badly sometimes, and Hux took to monitoring his training closely, making use of an all-clear siren when he recognized that Ben needed to stop. The pleasure of the fight, and his style of instruction by combat, had transformed into something else, something harder. Hux hated that it was still disgustingly attractive, and perhaps better than what it had been before.

Ben was nearly all he thought about, and more and more of the minutiae of the training program was given over to Cardinal and Phasma as he designed Ben’s new programs, scheduled the units to train with him, began handling more of the Trooper administrative load, and generally thought of nothing but Ben Solo every day. Ben Solo’s anger, what would please Ben Solo, Ben Solo’s uniforms, Ben Solo’s fighting style, how to make the best use of Ben Solo, and Ben Solo’s body.

He began trying to find something else for Ben to wear, only contemplating it and making selections when Ben was occupied in training. He had something in mind, a surprise that Ben would hopefully enjoy.

It was tied into something else that Hux noticed. Ben had called his 'Knights' from the _Supremacy_  and had begun training with them, too. If he was harsh on the Troopers, he was brutal with the Knights, and threatened to turn his fury on Hux when Hux tried to intervene.

“They grew up with me,” Ben breathed from behind the pilot helmet, emotion barely controlled, taking a step toward Hux as he entered the training room. The ‘Knights’ were standing around, backs pressed against the wall and observing, while two were laid out on the floor, their weapons knocked away. “They know me. I know what they can handle.”

Hux opened his mouth to retort, then closed it, knowing that Ben would hear his opinion anyway.

 _You know, and you go further_.

He turned around and left Ben to punish his most loyal students.

He did try, one more time, to intervene. He approached the 'Knights' alone while Ben was occupied with Trooper training elsewhere. 'Knight' training was entirely physical, as far as Hux knew, though he did not check security footage to see if any part of their previous Jedi lifestyle of contemplation and meditation had been maintained. He knew Ben didn’t do any of that.

When they saw him step through the door, they froze, then fell into ranks. Their faces were attentive, then confused when they saw that Hux was by himself. Hux nodded to them, half-expecting them to salute, as it was part of the conditioning. But at Ben’s request, they were not receiving the full conditioning courses, so they only stared.

“Jara Lat.” He stopped in front of the oldest, a young woman with short-shaved dark brown hair and deep brown eyes that regarded Hux with suspicion. She kept her hands loose at her side and her posture eerily relaxed. She may have been only slightly younger than Ben, and half a head shorter. She was lithe, with ribs, hips, and shoulders that stood out prominently in the thin black body armor that Stormtroopers wore under their armor.

She didn’t acknowledge Hux’s greeting at all, only stared back at him. Hux wanted to roll his eyes. Instead, he continued with his business.

“I came to check on your welfare, you and your fellow students.”

“Knights,” Jara corrected him. Her voice was deep, her Republican accent clipped.

“Knights. Right. You’ve been on the _Finalizer_  and the _Supremacy_  for nearly eight months-”

“And this is the first time you’ve spoken to us.”

Hux exhaled sharply, on the edge of considering a punishment for insubordination. He would not be spoken to this way. “I don’t speak to new recruits, _Knight_ ,” he responded tightly, giving her chosen title the flavor of an insult. “But since the nature of your training regimen is… more extreme than what my other recruits get, I had intended to ask how you were doing.”

“Because you think you know us better than Ben?”

“Clearly Ben, or Luke Skywalker, failed to train you in etiquette.” The conditioning program would have to be revised. He turned, stalking out of the room, appalled at what his concern had gotten him.

“Etiquette. Because that’s important in your fake Empire?”

Hux paused, turning to glance over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow. The other students glanced at the young woman, but she took a step forward, bold, her gaze challenging. “Am I supposed to do a special little bow for you when I see you? Lick your boots? Offer to hold your coat while you take the credits from some poor planet and enslave their population?”

Hux turned more fully around, but didn’t approach her. “Fake Empire,” he repeated.

“I’m sorry, did I misunderstand? The fake Stormtroopers and your little uniforms and the Star Destroyers. I just assumed. I heard you got all your nice toys from your daddy.”

“You were shitting in the bushes on some backwater numbered planet not one year ago, in a sad pantomime of what one man believed was the Jedi religion, after having spent less than twenty-four hours in their company. That camp managed to produce Ben Solo, and you. And he burned it down and came here.”

She snarled. “We’re leaving with him as soon as he’s done here.”

“Done doing what?” Hux was amused now. “What do you think he’s doing here? Bringing the ship down from the inside?”

“Something for you. He wouldn’t stop talking about you. He didn’t say you were Empire junior.”

“And you followed him here.” Hux took several steps closer. “Do you really think he’s leaving?”

“He is,” she said firmly, not breaking Hux’s gaze. “As soon as he’s done with you.”

Hux looked out over the other six knights. The youngest looked to be twelve. “Is that what you all believe?”

They looked uncertainly at one another, shifting on their feet. Hux nodded to one. “What do you think? Will Ben leave here with all of you sometime soon?”

“Jara says so,” the boy said reluctantly.

“And what does Ben say?”

The others looked at each other. Jara’s angry gaze fell to the floor. Hux looked back to her. “What does Ben say about it, Jara?”

“That we’re starting something new together. Here.” She wouldn’t look up at him. “The Knights. That it was a new way of studying the Force, and we would be strengthening our bodies, our minds, and our abilities in the Force without committing to the Jedi or Sith.”

Hux didn’t care about the Jedi or Sith nonsense, but was pleased to hear that Ben was making some sort of plan, though they sounded like ill-considered nonsense.

“Here. In the Junior Empire. Correct?”

Jara didn’t reply. Neither did any of the others. After a moment, Hux turned back around.

“Well. I’m pleased that you are well. Continue. I hope you enjoy your training with Ben.”

Satisfied that Ben had their loyalty, if nothing else, he continued to monitor Ben’s training sessions, watching him fight the former students to the point of exhaustion. Jara Lat got better. The rest of them were young, but they would be great, in time. Perhaps even whatever kind of elite 'Knight' Ben had in mind.

Ben exhausted himself in physicality every day, and slept in Hux’s bed during their off shifts. Hux ordered a larger size, but Ben slept with Hux pulled close to him, one leg thrown across Hux’s waist. Hux didn’t complain. Ben was always frigid when he got into bed, and warmed to intolerable levels as he slept. Hux kept him close. It was important. He stayed up late, using a datapad while wrapped in Ben's arms to read the training reports he was neglecting during the day, and he thought.

They were not intimate. Ben was too exhausted, and Hux was… not in the right frame of mind, though he was certainly still attracted to Ben, watched his body nearly every day.

He was _worried_. Ben needed to see a way through. Ben needed peace.

“I have something for you,” Hux offered one morning. He usually forced Ben to begin his day at the same time as his own. Ben had yet to get used to the early hours that Hux kept, and didn’t often express any pleasure upon waking up next to Hux, unless he was feigning affection to get more sleep. Hux always saw through that.

Hux always woke alert, making the plans for his day almost as soon as his eyes opened. And today, he had something special in mind.

“I don’t want it,” Ben mumbled, rolling over and pulling the thin sheet back over himself.

“I don’t care. You’ll have it.” Hux pulled the sheet back and shoved, pushing the bulk of Ben to the edge of the bed with his foot. Ben was really too big to push around like that, but Hux loved the idea that only he could do it. And Ben's body was worth admiring. He slept nude, and Hux couldn’t help but stare, taking in the sight of him with the sheet pulled back. He examined Ben’s thighs, the muscles in his back, his shoulders. Ben rolled back over and cracked an eye.

“I’m too tired for that.”

Hux shoved him with a foot again. “Irrelevant. Get up.”

“Make me.”

The routine was familiar now. Hux pulled the entire blanket off the bed, leaving Ben bare and exposed to the chill of the room. Hux eyed the dark trail of hair down his lower belly for a moment, then looked back up to see Ben groaning, one arm thrown across his face.

“I’m cleaning up and getting ready,” Hux stated firmly. “You have that much time to lay about.”

Hux took precisely twenty minutes in the ‘fresher, shaving, cleaning his teeth, and dressing. When he came back out, Ben was awake, but still feigning a kind of annoyed sleep.

“’Fresher,” Hux ordered, taking up his datapad.

“It’s too cold out here anyway,” Ben complained, rolling himself out of bed and stumbling naked into the attached suite. Hux smirked, watching his bare ass go, then ordered the temperature of the room raised, along with their breakfasts.

When Ben came back out, he was in a white undershirt that stretched across the expanse of his chest, but nude below the waist. Ben still adamantly refused to wear underwear, no matter what Hux told him. But it hadn’t yet grown tiresome in their own quarters. Hux let himself stare as Ben walked in and sat down to a hot breakfast of the low-grade breakfast meat and root vegetables that he preferred. Hux watched him eat over the rim of his teacup, having long since finished his own portion, a single yerri egg, hard-boiled and salted.

It was a familiar routine. But it was still strange, to think that Hux could change his life, _would_ change his life, to accommodate another person like this. He and Ben went to bed together, slept together, woke up together, ate together, trained together. It had been strange at first, an attempt to make Ben feel better and get him acclimated to a new life. But there was still something exciting about it all. Only Hux was allowed to see Ben Solo stuffing his face like an animal at mealtimes, dick defiantly on display.

Ben studied Hux while shoving food into his mouth. “You’ve been staring all morning. I’m not too tired now. For sex. If you want.” he offered, between bites.

“So charming. I’d stare less if you wore clothes to bed. Or to eat.”

Ben raised his eyebrows. “Maybe I want you to stare.”

The exchange was easy, and the offer genuine. Hux almost smiled. Hux did want him, wanted to lean across the table and do something absolutely disgusting and uncivilized like lick the corned beef off the corner of Ben’s mouth. Ben brought out the worst impulses in him.

And because Ben could read his thoughts, he licked the corned beef off himself, and smirked.

Hux frowned at him. “Hold that thought. I have something else in mind first. It needs doing, and I doubt you’ll be in a fit state after we finish.”

"After fucking, or after what you want to do?"

Hux considered. "I was thinking of sex. But either, really."

Ben set his fork down, his expression growing more suspicious, his tension and low-level anger returning. “What needs doing, then?”

Hux rose and walked to the door, where he had an oversize transport container waiting on the floor against the wall. He popped the lid and began pulling out new clothing, piling it in his arms and bringing it back over to the breakfast table.

“Your new uniform. It should be easier for you to train in these.”

He’d chosen light, tight-fitting fabric that stretched. Something like the Trooper underarmor, with a tunic that draped nearly to the floor.

“It’s all black,” Ben frowned, taking in the various pieces that Hux had handed him.

Hux walked back over to the transport crate, returning with a pair of boots that he placed on the floor next to Ben, stuffing a pair of socks into one of his hands. “It suits you.”

They were nice boots, more combat boots than the dress boots that were worn with the officer uniforms. As Ben examined them, Hux went to the crate and pulled out the last item, unseen by Ben.

When he returned and set the helmet in the center of the table with a loud bang, Ben’s breath caught.

Hux had called in a favor from the engineering wing on the _Finalizer_. Ben had liked the anonymity provided by the flight helmet immensely, but he looked ridiculous wearing it with the Officer uniform.

There was nothing ridiculous about this helmet. It was something between an old-fashioned Mandalorian mercenary helmet and Darth Vader’s own helmet. The homage, he hoped, was obvious, and the armor engineer that had done the mockups had agreed with him. The silver around the eyepiece made it something like a Trooper helmet, but more reflective, eye-catching. It wasn’t as obvious a statement as Phasma's chrome armor, but it was bold.

Like Ben. It suited him.

Hux watched Ben study the helmet. After a moment, Ben turn to him, a look of disbelief on his face.

“You’re _nervous_.”

“Of course I am,” Hux snapped defensively, then closed his mouth. He’d designed it himself, and was eager to see Ben’s reaction. Ben smirked, then looked back to the helmet, picking it up, letting his thumb run along one of the chrome ridges, his eyes locked to the dark visor.

His emotions were unusually muted. Not the roil of negativity they so often were now, but not the low warmth they sometimes had between them, either. His expression was still one of surprise, but he said nothing, and his thoughts were hidden. Suddenly, Hux couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Well?” he demanded, hands behind his back, shoulders straight.

“Well what?” Ben glanced up briefly, smirking, before he turned his attention back to the helmet. “You being unsure about something is the real gift.”

“ _Ben_ ,” Hux warned, and Ben smiled, brief but genuine, his reflection caught in the chrome.

“I’m not Darth Vader,” he said quietly, looking back up at Hux. “If that’s what you were hoping for, you were wrong.”

Hux was repulsed by the idea. “Am I imagining Snoke as the Emperor in that scenario?”

“No, probably yourself.”

Hux rolled his eyes. “Not quite. But no, that’s not how I see you.”

 _But it still means something_ , he thought to himself, feeling Ben in the back of his head. They had occasional moments of quiet connection, but nothing like the intimacy before Snoke. Still, he knew Ben could read his thoughts distinctly, when they were close and Hux wanted him to.

Ben rested the helmet on top of the clothes in his lap. “My uncle told me he regretted it, at the end,” he said quietly, using one finger to investigate the crevices and visor. “Darth Vader did. Regretted becoming that, at the end of his life.”

“Your uncle kept family from you. Knowledge of who you are, and what you’re capable of,” Hux reminded him, intentionally probing the wound, preparing Ben for what came next. Ben looked up at him, suspicious, tasting the edges of Hux’s intention. It didn’t matter. Hux continued. “Your grandfather's decisions made him who he was. So will yours. But Darth Vader is a part of your past, and one that you shouldn’t hide from.”

“One I should imitate.”

“No. You’re better than that.” Hux let his arms rest at his sides, relaxed his posture. “You’ve told me that you admire my confidence. There’s no secret to it. You simply have to be sure.”

“How?” Ben’s question came out with more emotion behind it, more feeling. He turned away from Hux, but Hux felt the weight of his feelings and his power pressing in. It was still warm, a good sign.

“By not looking back. When you make a decision, it’s done, and there’s no point in what ifs. You have to believe that you’ve done the right thing with what you know. And you always move forward from there, regardless of what happens.” Hux moved to Ben’s side, putting his gloved fingers beneath Ben’s chin and tipping his face up so he looked into Hux’s eyes.

“You are exceptional. I will tell you that every day if you wish, because it’s true. And you were not using your exceptional talents to their full potential. You were suspicious, and you were betrayed, and you came here. To what purpose, if not to grow stronger and make use of yourself? The choice was a good one. Can’t you see that now?”

Hux could feel Ben struggling, could see confusion in his expression, but he sensed that Ben was growing more satisfied with his situation. Satisfied or resigned.

Ben scowled, leaning away from Hux’s grip and looking back to the helmet in his lap. “I thought I came here because you talked your way into my bed.”

Hux slapped him, once, not as hard as he could have, and the force of it was mostly muffled by his glove. The slap left the red imprint of his hand on Ben's cheek. Ben left his face turned, but his eyes found Hux’s. Hux crossed his arms, and didn’t let his expression change.

“I expected that,” Hux said after a moment.

“I’m sure you did. You think of everything.”

“I knew you would need to say it once. And I do think of everything. But you think of too much to see your way through. _That’s_  why you came here when your family betrayed you.”

Hux took a step back, putting more space between them. “You will continue to blame me until I force you to stop feeling sorry for yourself. I want you to do something drastic. I want you to leave it all behind.”

Ben looked up at him, curious, not aggressive. That was good. “How?”

“I want you to choose a different name to go with this mask. To everyone else, this will be you.” He hesitated, and knew Ben would see the details of the Stormtrooper programming in his thoughts anyway, so he rushed forward. “We give the Troopers their helmets, and tell them that they struggled as individuals, but as a whole, they are stronger. Which is true. In your case, it’s not a matter of being faceless and blending in.” This time, Hux stepped forward and dragged his fingers across the top of the helmet. “You’ll stand out. But you’ll be someone new. You won’t be someone with a family history, with doubts, with things that were left behind. You won’t have to doubt this new person, because they will belong to the First Order. And what the First Order is doing is right.”

Ben looked back down at the helmet, and to Hux’s hand.

“You don’t even know if I like this helmet.”

Hux pulled his hand away, and Ben snatched his wrist, the corner of his mouth twitching.

“It’s fine. I’ll do it.”

He could feel Ben turning over the decision in his mind, growing more sure of it as he considered it. Hux felt some of the knots in Ben’s emotions ease, could see his shoulders drop, his body language relax. Ben closed his eyes.

“I’ll do it. You’re right.” He looked up at Hux, his brown eyes soft suddenly, full of a trust that Hux didn’t often see. He knew Ben possessed it, he knew he had it from Ben, but seeing it naked was… alarming. He swallowed, and crossed his arms again.

“What name should I pick?” Ben asked.

“You choose it. Make it your own. I’ll tell you if it’s wrong.”

“Just choose one for me, and I’ll know it’s right. I don’t care what it is. You probably do.”

Hux didn’t want to choose Ben’s name, and hadn’t considered what it should be. His eyes darted around the room.

“I’m so used to calling you ‘Ben’ that learning something new will be difficult.”

“No kidding,” Ben said softly, still staring at the mask. “And it won’t even be your name.”

Hux looked at him, worried that this would be something else that Ben blamed him for, but he didn’t seem to be angry about it, just resigned to change. That was probably good. Hux looked around the room again.

“Ren,” he stated, looking at Ben. “I can call you Ren.”

Ben looked back up at him. “That’s not very different.”

“Then choose something else,” Hux snapped. “It’s your name.”

The corner of his mouth quirked again, and Hux felt himself flush. “I like seeing you unsure.” He gave a small smile and looked back down at the helmet. “Kylo. It should be two names, right?”

Hux spoke before he could stop himself. “Kylo? Really?” When Ben looked up at him sharply, objections and questions died in his throat. He could tell Ben wanted him to ask. Hux resolved not to. Ben frowned again.

“Kylo Ren. I’ll use Ren as a title. I can call my Knights that, too.”

“I’m not calling you Kylo,” Hux snapped. “That’s ridiculous.”

Ben smirked. “Then call me Ren. I don’t care.”

Hux rolled his eyes again. “Get dressed,” he snapped. “You’re doing one more thing today.”

Ben rose and brought all the clothing into the bedroom, not asking Hux was the next thing was, and as far as Hux could tell, not even curious. Hux watched him go, his pale, bare ass disappearing through the doorway into the bedroom. Hux shook his head. The fabric for his new clothes was very thin, and Ben might have to wear underwear with them. That, or shave himself mostly bare, an idea that Hux immediately rejected.

Hux had considered something thicker for Ben’s outfit, a kind of armor, and there was a prototype that Ben-

 _Ren_ , he reminded himself, _It’s Ren now_

-could wear on missions. But he hadn’t brought it with him. Ren wasn’t some common Trooper that would need to get used to it. And he thought of Ren, and that unstable red lightsaber, and what it would look like with his new uniform. He swallowed, then sat at the table, paging through messages and announcements on his datapad without really reading them. With the lightsaber, Ren may not need armor at all.

Ridiculous. He wasn’t immortal. Hux would get him some.

When Ren came back out, Hux couldn’t keep the self-satisfied smirk off his face. He stood and assessed Ren.

“Don’t be so proud of yourself,” Ren said. The vocoder distorted his voice, but Hux could still hear the sourness in his tone. It only made him grin, briefly. He stepped forward, pulling on the trailing ends of the long tunic, then running his palm along Ren's ass.  Ren turned to look at him over his shoulder.

“It doesn’t suit you as well as the uniform."

“I think both look better on the floor,” Ren returned, and Hux nearly laughed, stepping back, forcing the smile from his face.

“A hood, or a cowl, maybe,” Hux said, considering. Ren crossed his arms.

“I can’t fight in that.”

“Then take it off when you need to fight.” Hux walked over, pulling his own greatcoat over his shoulders. It was a custom design, no one else wore it. “It’s a look. Like this. Do you think I would fight in this? Or that I use it to keep warm?”

Hux heard a burst of static as Ren made some sound behind his helmet, and he felt Ren’s incredulity in his head, warmer now. Hux turned away and closed his eyes. This had been the right thing to do.

"Hux. What do you wear to fight in?"

"Ren. Leave the helmet on, and come with me.”

“Wait.” Ren’s new mechanical voice was harsh, and it would take some getting used to. When Hux turned back around, his gestures were hesitant. They’d have to work on that, it didn’t suit him at all now.

At the thought, Ren straightened his shoulders. Hux looked at them for a moment, then back at the mask. He’d grown used to Ben Solo hiding his face, but this was different. It truly was someone new. “Well? Was there something else?”

“You. Earlier, you said that after this was done, we could-” Ren’s voice stopped, and his fists bunched at his sides.

Hux raised his eyebrows expectantly, but he felt a creeping sense of shame, of something Ren didn’t want to say out loud.

“So don’t say it out loud.”

There was another burst of static, and then Ben Solo’s voice in his head, forceful and slightly painful. Hux winced.

 _You were staring earlier, and we. Haven’t. In awhile_. He took a step closer, and tried out loud again.

“I want you, Hux. I always want you.”

The tender words were mechanical and awkward through the helmet. Still, Ben Solo was even more remarkable transformed, and Hux put his hands on Ren’s shoulders, disgustingly attracted to what they were doing. He huffed, feeling his cock stirring. Ben Solo was power. Kylo Ren was the First Order’s power, and even better.

He reached up to the latches on Ren’s helmet, wanting what was beneath, wanting a kiss. But he paused, and dropped his hands to his side.

“Ren. I don’t think you’ll want it before what we’re about to do.”

“I do.”

He took a step closer, putting his own hands to his helmet, and Hux grabbed his wrists.

“I know you won't.”

It would be good, Hux could feel it. And he wanted it badly. Wanted this powerful man, and wanted what sex would inevitably turn into. The warmth between them, and that profound _need_  that had been so strong in Ren since his training with Snoke.

They both needed it, and they both enjoyed it.

But he didn’t want that associated with what happened next.

“I don’t say it lightly. Come. We need to do this.”

He could feel Ren forming an objection. But he hurried out of the room before Ren could convince him, because Hux was weak to Ben Solo.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

They took the transport through the _Finalizer_ , crowded due to the shift change. Hux didn’t miss the way that heads turned to watch Kylo Ren at his side. His certainty that this was right only grew, and he snapped his steps louder, squared his shoulders, walked with more purpose. He could feel Ren next to him, embarrassed by the attention and withering beneath it.

 _Don’t_ , he insisted sharply in Ren’s head, sure that Ren would hear it as they sat next to each other on the transport. _You've been a celebrity your entire life. You should be used to people looking at you_.

_They never did._

_I did_ , Hux insisted.

_And look what happened when I caught your attention._

Hux frowned, but didn’t answer at first. He decided to ignore the remark. _The attention is a good thing. You look intimidating, powerful. You are faceless_.

He could feel Ren analyzing the idea, his presence expanding and growing stronger in Hux’s mind.

 _You did cover my face, didn’t you_? He mused. Hux could feel him shift next to him. _You did that almost as soon as I got to the_ Supremacy _. Why?_

 _You don’t need a face to be intimidating_. 

He hadn’t wanted others to recognize Ben Solo, didn’t want uncontrolled rumors of Ben Solo getting back to the New Republic. He had his own thoughts on how that should happen. And Ben Solo seemed… uncomfortable with scrutiny. Kylo Ren would not be.

Ren’s presence in his thoughts grew more and more, bringing pain and a rapid headache with it.

“Stop,” he hissed aloud, not adjusting his posture or otherwise giving himself away. No one but Ren was close enough to hear him.

 _You don’t want other people to see my face,_  Ren concluded, slightly wounded.

 _No. That’s between you and me now_.

Which was as selfish as it was true, but a different, better reason was that Ben’s face was achingly expressive. Every thought he had was there, and Ben had never been taught to control his expressions, an amazing oversight for the son of a senator as skilled as Leia Organa.

Kylo Ren didn’t need expressions and thoughts to command, however. It was better for Kylo Ren’s thoughts to remain a mystery. The only things other people needed to know about Ren would be what he told - _commanded_  - them to do, and his prowess in battle.

Ren seemed to consider this, and grew fonder of the idea.

 _I won't have to talk to them. Less work for me_ , he concluded.

Hux looked at him out of the corner of his eye. That was true enough, but not quite what he had meant. But if it made Ren happy, all the better.

Their destination was the comm room, one of the smaller suites with only three operators. Hux walked in unannounced and watched all three comm officers turn to him, confused. After a moment, Ren appeared, and their attention caught and stayed on Ren.

“We need the comm suite,” Hux said, gesturing behind him. “Out. Give us an hour.”

“Major,” one of the officers began. “It’s not… proper protocol. We’re monitoring the comm traffic in the -”

“The messages will still be there in an hour. We need to comm suite. Out.” As a Major, he didn’t quite have the rank for this, but the majority of the Order, Officers and Troopers alike, had been conditioned to obey Hux’s commands. They were always reasonable commands, and they were always obeyed, regardless of whether he was overstepping.

The other two Officers had disappeared at Hux’s first order, fleeing the room, staying as far away from Ren as possible. He entertained the idea of reconditioning the third Officer for questioning his orders, but the comm officer had only been following proper protocol. And Hux liked to encourage a reasonable amount of thought, just in case a Commanding Officer failed to make the right choice at a critical time.

When the third Officer left, Hux closed and locked the door with the highest security clearances he had, which he did with an old cylinder of his father’s. Colonel Drake, the Commander, would be able to get in if she happened across the door, but that was it.

Satisfied with that, he used another cylinder to enter a script that would mask nearly everything about the communication from both the sending end and the receiving end. He’d called in another favor owed for the complicated masking script, but it was worth it.

Once the masking protocol was running, he turned to Ren and let himself think about what they were doing. He reached up and removed Ren’s helmet, watching as his hair tumbled loose around his face. Ren scowled, and Hux knew he saw where this was going.

“I want you to call your mother. And I want you to tell her what you’ve done.”

“What I’ve done,” Ren repeated in a flat voice.

“I want you to make a clean break. I want you to answer all your mother’s questions, and I want you to believe the answers and be certain she hears and understands them. That this is you now, and you aren’t going back.” Hux paused, setting the helmet aside. “They’re looking for you. I’ve monitored the Holonet feeds. They’ll keep looking until they find you, and I don’t want some ill-conceived rescue attempt made if rumor of your presence gets out.”

Ren’s lips thinned, and Hux felt his anger. He didn’t like this surprise. Hux was glad they hadn’t had sex. His desire would have been genuine, but it would have felt like manipulation to Ren, like Hux was bribing him to do this.

“Decisive acts are part of being a Commander, Ren. And you are a Commander now, or soon will be. I want you here in the Order with me, and I want you to do this.”

Ren looked at Hux, and Hux was sure that Ren would punch him in the face. Hux considered whether he deserved it, and concluded that he did not. This was necessary, and probably something Ren should have done as soon as he reached Hux’s base.

Ren turned from him, laughing softly under his breath and taking a seat in front of the console. “Of course you think you’re right. Most people would avoid this, Hux.”

“You’re not most people, Ren.”

Ren glanced up at him, then back to the console, entering a long set of coordinates from memory.

“You know your mother’s holonet address?”

“No,” Ren said bitterly. “But that’s a really basic calling code to the main Senate network.”

 _The Senate network_. To anyone else, this would look like treason, and Hux would have no defense if they were caught. It was a stupid risk, but necessary. He stood back from view of the holocam as the call went through. Ren was angry again, his hands flexing in his lap, shoulders hunched, expression stormy. He asked a harried receptionist for his mother’s office, then his mood got worse as he was put on hold again before he could speak further.

“Senator Organa’s office,” a smooth female voice answered after a moment. A uniformed woman with braided hair wrapped around her head appeared in the feed, a neutral expression on her face.

“I need to speak to the Senator,” Ren managed, pushing himself up straight. “It’s important.”

“The Senator is currently occupied,” the woman replied without missing a beat. “Can I help you with something?”

Hux watched the muscles in Ren’s jaw bunch. “Your name is… Korrie. I’m Ben. My mother is looking for me.”

The woman’s face remained neutral. “Ben. I apologize, but there are many people calling the Senator’s office with false information. It’s rather insensitive, as you can imagine.” Her voice sharpened, but her expression gave nothing away. “Is there anything you can tell me that might verify your claim?”

“We’ve _met_ ,” Ren ground out, leaning forward. “I think I’ve seen you a couple times. How long have you worked for my mother?”

This did cause the woman to pause, and Hux admired her poise. “It will take more than a grainy holo and a passing resemblance to get me to put you through to scam the Senator.”

Hux could see that Ren was growing too angry to continue. Hux was, admittedly, flabbergasted that the Senator’s own son could not get past her assistant. “Tell her about when you saw her last,” Hux murmured.

Ren turned his head slightly to look at him, then turned back to the holo. “The last time I saw you was around two years ago. I came with… the other Jedi. To speak to the Senate about Howten. We didn’t do anything on that planet. I didn’t actually talk. You were sitting next to my mother. She didn’t speak on the floor that day.”

Hux thinned his lips. That had been the day Hux had met Ben. An unfortunate memory to conjure, though perhaps that would balance out Ren’s obvious difficulty in speaking of his uncle. It had been clear in his tone.

When the woman stared at them a moment too long, Hux murmured, “The time before that, too.”

Ren turned and narrowed his eyes at Hux, probably because it had been an obvious next step. But before either could react, the woman spoke.

“Are you being _coached_?” She leaned forward, disgust creeping into her expression. “Did someone just tell you what to say? Tell the other person that an augmented physical resemblance to match the well-documented holos of the Senator’s son isn’t going to convince me.” She crossed her arms, and Hux knew that they would get no farther.

Surprisingly, Ren was the one that made it work. He leaned forward, his fists smashing into the console on either side of the small holo hard enough to make it flicker. “Something that isn’t public knowledge? You’ve worked for my mother for at least four years, right? How often do you remember her getting calls from me in that time? Or making them?”

The woman opened her mouth, but Ren continued. “She didn’t. And you’ll know that I can’t give a special comm code or signal to get past you, or even the Senate holonetwork, because there _isn’t one_.” He was breathing heavily, and his expression was feral. Hux could feel the pressure of him in the room, the chill of his power seeping into his mind and body. “How long did it take her to notice I was gone?”

The woman’s mouth opened, then closed. Her face gave nothing away. Hux liked her.

“ _Put me through_ ,” Ren demanded, his voice low and dangerous. The woman took a step back from the holoset, though her face was still expressionless. Without a word, she reached up and hit a button. For a moment, Hux was sure that she had ended the call, and he didn’t know what to do about Ren. He felt Ren guess it too, the cold of his presence intensifying. Hux locked his knees to keep his straight posture, but put his hands on the back of Ren’s seat to steady himself.

They were on hold for only a moment before Leia Organa’s form flickered in front of them. Her eyes widened, her expression lit up.

“Ben? I’m so relieved you called, we’ve all been worried about you.”

“Have you?” Ren asked, leaning back into the chair and crossing his arms.

“Of course. Luke told us-”

“Luke told you _what_?”

She sobered. “He told us you lost control, Ben. You’ll have to come back, and we’ll need to… determine how to handle that. But you don’t have to worry. Just come home.”

“I lost control.” His voice was low, dangerous. His anger was still there, but it wasn’t the blunt force it had been when talking to the assistant. It was sharp, dangerous. Hux knew Organa wasn’t picking up on it, the relief of seeing her son too great.

“Luke said you… lost your battle with the Dark side. Ben, you did terrible things. Are the other students with you?”

“Yes,” he answered shortly.

“Good. You can bring them back. We can reassure their families that they’re okay-”

“They did the same things I did. Killed the others.”

Leia paused again at that, but she kept all emotion but relief from her face. It was calculated now, and Hux realized she knew the importance of her response in this moment. He smirked, taking petty pleasure in watching this unfold. She could do nothing to change Ren’s mind.

“I know they killed the others,” she said carefully. “Luke mentioned they were all students that were more… attuned to the Dark side. But Ben. They were minors. You… weren’t.”

“Would it make everyone feel better if I said I mind-controlled them?”

Leia frowned. “Did you?”

“Yes,” he said simply. Hux frowned and shifted his hands behind his back. What was the benefit of lying about that?

“I attacked Luke, then I brainwashed all the students that were the strongest. I single handedly killed the rest and burned down the school. I stole a ship, took the students with me, and escaped to Wild Space.”

“Okay,” Organa said slowly. “Then you can bring them back. They’re okay. You’re okay. Don’t think this has to be… anything final. We can help you-”

“Help me what?” Ren asked, his tone still light. The pressure grew harder, colder, and Hux’s hand moved to the back of Ren’s neck, his gloved fingers twining in Ren’s hair. The pressure lessened, and Ren leaned back into the touch, his expression shifting, looking less angry and more confident.

“You murdered _students_ , Ben.” Leia said. “There will be consequences for that. I know you understand.”

“Did you ask Luke about murdering students?”

“What?”

“He would know about that.”

Leia was silent for a moment, but then her voice hardened. “Don’t blame others for your own actions.”

Ren snorted and leaned forward, pulling away from Hux’s touch. “Fine. Like I told you, I did everything. I killed them, I burned it down, I ran away.”

Leia shook her head, slowly. “You could-”

“I’m done with _could_  and possibilities and trying to be something I’m not,” he said, his mood shifting. He was very nearly shouting at Organa now. “I’m not a Jedi. I can’t meditate and _talk_  and find the right things to say. I can’t go around to these planets everyone chooses to be part of the New Republic, because they’re rich or have something to offer. I can’t pretend like my family didn’t betray me for _two decades_ -” He cut himself off, taking a long breath through his nose.

Organa seemed to be genuinely distraught by this. “How could you say that? We didn’t betray-”

“This is the longest conversation we’ve had in years,” he noted absently, calming himself and leaning back in the chair. Hux returned his hand to the back of Ren’s neck.

“ _Ben_ ,” she said, her voice breaking.

“I’m not coming back,” he answered shortly. “I’m staying here. I’m keeping those students for myself. We’re exploring our strengths, and Luke isn’t here to stop us.”

“He wasn’t-” she began. “He was helping you to see-”

“He helped me see,” Ren interrupted her, shifting to lean one arm on the seat. He gripped the padded arms, and Hux could see how tense he was, his gloved fingers nearly puncturing the thin fabric.

“ _Ben_.”

“Ben is gone. Luke killed him. Ask him about that.”

He reached out and ended the call. His hand didn’t shake. The pressure in the room was still heavy and cold.

Hux and Ren stood in silence. They still had over thirty minutes before they would be interrupted by the comm crew. Indicators flashed and toned quietly as incoming messages were intercepted and received. They should leave. The Comm Officer had been correct about this being an important post.

Instead, he ran his fingers through Ren’s hair. Ren slumped forward, his arms on the console.

“What do you need, Ren?”

Ren turned, grabbing Hux around the waist. It was unexpected, but he had asked what Ren needed, so he complied. Hux sat in his lap, straddling him, surreptitiously typing commands into the console to disable the holorecorders in the room.

Ren sat, arms around Hux’s waist, face buried in his chest. Hux put both arms around his neck, a hand on his back, another in his hair.

“It was the right thing to do, Ren. That part of your life is over. Was it not a relief to put it to rest?”

Ren shuddered, and he could feel the pressure lifting, the chill warming marginally.

“Yes,” he muttered, muffled, into Hux’s chest.

Hux felt the tension run out of him, an inhale and exhale, and Ren tipped his head up to look into Hux’s face. Giving him the helmet had been the right choice. His expressions said too much.

Ren turned down the corners of his mouth. “What does my face say, Hux?”

Hux sighed. “Reading minds is your area, not mine.”

“That’s bantha shit. I think you do it better than I do.”

Hux leaned in and pressed their foreheads together, closing his eyes and giving himself over to this. “I don’t. That’s why I need you here.” He inhaled, and brought his other hand up to Ren’s hair, dropping the level of his voice. “You have my trust, and my loyalty, Ren. These aren’t things I give lightly.” He pulled back, hardening his expression and looking into Ren’s eyes. “Do you understand?”

Ren’s expression softened further, and he looked almost wounded, overwhelmed. The chill of his presence went away, replaced with a sudden warmth.

“I do,” he said quietly, bringing their lips together. Hux indulged himself in Ren’s mouth, hot and responsive, full lips sucked between Hux’s teeth, and pulled away. “And you were right about this, Hux. I needed to do it.”

“I’m always right. Kind of you to acknowledge it.” He smirked, and leaned in for another indulgent kiss.

 _Your mine_ , he murmured, without opening his mouth. _And you're exceptional. You made the right choice._


	16. Part Three: Laüstic - Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aesthetically, Trebor is a little Imperium of Man-ish, which I know very little about other than it is Very Extra. Specifically, Ren seems to have wandered into the [Adeptus Mechanicus](http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Adeptus_Mechanicus). I struggle to describe Space Marine armor here, but if you're trying to picture what those guards look like, it's that.
> 
> This is also... pretty dark and heavy in general, though nothing particularly irregular happens. I put some minor things in the end notes, so check over that if you're worried about a specific direction. The next chapter will be the opposite in every way, if that helps at all.

It hurt, seeing Ren after all this time and effort, but it was also similar to how firing Starkiller had felt - an inevitability, a monumental task that he’d given his life over to and was now complete, to his satisfaction.

It was better than that, because he wasn’t screaming into a field of Stormtroopers. It was just Ren, and a few others in the room. But neither of them noticed anyone else.

He’d thought of a thousand things to say to Ren over the years, in a thousand different moods. But, as it usually went with Ren, he found his careful control completely gone. It was as if no time at all had passed. Hux smirked. He couldn’t help himself.

“Still me.”

Ren’s expression twisted from shock to an unwarranted anger, and Hux frowned as he took a better look at him. He supposed he couldn’t pass judgment in his own filthy, ungroomed state, but at least his flight suit made _sense_. Ren was wearing an elaborate costume, a kind of short beaded veil covering his hair with silver bits of metal and twinkling yellow stones. Some sort of primitive chainmail was draped across his chest over a brown tunic and some sort of long brown skirt. He was barefoot.  He looked like the kind of tyrant kings Hux rescued people from.  That Ren routinely executed.

He was also filthy, from head to foot. He had smears of grease and dirt all over his skin and clothes. His knuckles were split, his skin rough. But his face was free of the Starkiller scar, furious though his expression was. Even kneeling on the ground, on Starkiller, the subject of Kylo Ren’s fury, Hux saw nothing but his eyes.  Brown, dark brown, and focused only on Hux.

“Who sent you?” Ren's voice was barely controlled. He was _very_  angry, the bare edges of the emotion licking against Hux’s awareness despite what seemed like a significant block from Ren.

Hux responded with a sneer of his own. “Who sent me? Who do you _think_  sent me? Ren, I spent _three years_  looking for you! You couldn’t have- You didn’t look for _me_  in that time?”

One of the guards backhanded him. Hux hadn’t expected it, had forgotten the guards were even there, and he fell to the floor. He lay on his side, stunned and blinking for a few moments before he had the presence of mind to roll over onto his stomach.

“Don’t disrespect the High Priest of Trebor,” one of the guards said.

Hux pushed himself up the best he could with his hands still bound, shooting an annoyed and put-upon glance at Ren. “Is that necessary?” He blinked as he pushed down the pain, licking the corner of his mouth and tasting blood. The soldier had used his mechanical hand for the blow, and cut Hux’s cheek. He frowned at the blood, then looked back at Ren. Ren would never allow this to happen to him.

“Why would I be looking for you? Why would I know who you are?”

“ _Why_?” Hux made to stand, but the guards put heavy hands on his shoulders. He struggled in their grip, still defiant, ignoring every sign that this was not what he thought it was. Because this was _Ren_.

“It’s _me_!” He insisted, struggling. “I know I don’t look my best, but certainly _you_  recognize me. I can see that you do.”

Ren walked closer. His face was cold, furious. “ _Who_  sent you?”

“Nobody sent me! I was trying to find you!” Panic was creeping into his voice. He tried to calm himself down, and couldn’t. This was going wrong, and he didn’t understand why. “Ren, I’ve done this a few times, I have to know what you remember of us, so I can explain-”

“Us?” he asked, incredulously. “There is no _us_. Just someone very… clever.” He looked around the chamber, then back at Hux, crouching in front of him. His skirt stretched to cover his knees. The veil he wore twinkled in the low light of the chamber against his dark hair. His eyes burned into Hux’s gaze. “Tell me who’s spying on me.”

“Ren,” Hux said, reaching for his own anger, using it to push down his panic and fear. “I’ve just combed the galaxy for three years looking for you, and I promise there is not a single being spying on you. I would have found them.”

Ren narrowed his eyes, fury melting into suspicion. “Are you with Crymorah?”

Hux barked a laugh, tossing his loose, unkempt hair out of his face where it had pulled free of its tie and fallen forward. He really should have cut it before now, should have cleaned himself up and found different clothes.

“No. I had to bring Crymorah to its knees before they would even give me a whisper of your location.”

Ren frowned, crossing his arms and settling into a kneeling position. One of the guards began to speak, and Ren gave him a sharp look to silence him. But his gaze softened again, and he looked back to Hux, more curious now. “Brought them to their knees?”

“Yes, I disrupted their operations for years to-” He shook his head. “Can we do this in private, away from your guards?  Possibly in chairs, rather than on my knees with my hands bound behind my back?”

Ren looked up at his guards. When he seemed to be thinking too hard about it, Hux snorted.

“I know you’re more capable of defending yourself than they are. Send them away.” He flexed his shoulders. “I know well enough you can break my neck, or my thoughts, or whatever it is you feel you need to threaten me with.”

Suspicion crossed Ren’s features again, but he stood, gesturing sharply to the guards. They walked away. Hux turned to watch over his shoulder, then began to climb to his feet.

He felt Ren’s Force against his shoulders, pushing him back down to the floor. His knees collided with the cold stone surface, and pain shot through his legs.

“Ren,” he said sharply, “I’m in no mood for this.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. This was going wrong. Neither of them looked or felt themselves. This was harder than it should have been, frustratingly so. He’d forgotten, over the years, what these reunions were like.

But he had found Ren, and this was just temporary. They were together now. They could move on from here.  Hux opened his eyes and met Ren's gaze.  “Fine. Tell me what you know of me.”

Ren stared at him. “How did you know?”

“Okay.  I don't know what you're talking about.  We aren't going to get anywhere like this.  You have to listen to me,” he explained, knowing this was the hardest part, getting Ren to believe him, and learning if the memories they shared were limited or somehow different. “I’ve been looking for you for _three years_. Before that. We had a life together. We ran the First Order, administered to the Outer Rim. You were an enforcer, an ambassador, a negotiator. I ran the Army, made the plans. We did it together. We made a weapon, on this planet, that eliminated the entire Hosnian system, the entirety of the New Republic government. It was that fast, Ren. We destroyed the Hosnian system with a weapon we built into this very planet.”

He looked into Ren’s face. Ren had no reaction. Hux could not read him, and he felt the panic rise again. He’d… never had trouble reading Ren. Ren's thoughts had been in his own, and Ren’s emotions had always been clear on his face.

When Ren had nothing to say to that heartfelt confession, Hux continued, at a loss. “I woke up one day, and you weren’t there, and none of it had happened. All my memories are… different than reality. I found you, and you remembered, but… something bad had happened to you.” He paused, thought about talking about Ventu. That was too complicated, so he stepped around it. “You weren’t yourself. So… we couldn’t be what we needed to be. I woke up, and things were different again, and you still weren’t yourself. This is the third time, and-”

He trailed off. None of this seemed to be having any affect on Ren. No reaction at all. It sounded like nonsense, of course. But Ren would sense if he was lying, and it was the only truth Hux had. 

Ren spoke, after a moment. “Am I myself, now?”

“I’d know better if you spoke,” he snapped. When Ren continued to stare at him, expressionless, he took a calming breath and continued. “You can use the Force,” Hux admitted. “I keep… how much you remember of me is different each time, so I don’t know about that. The first time, you remembered everything. The second time, you said it was… like a dream.”

Ren’s stare bored into him, the light catching against the yellow jewels in his veil. “And this time?”

Fed up, Hux struggled against his Force hold. “How should I know how much do you remember this time? You’re blocking me.”

“Blocking you from what?”

“Your memories, your thoughts! We usually…” Hux trailed off. He searched his mind desperately for Ren, hoping that saying it would open the link between them. It hadn’t. “We share everything,” he clarified, hating the sullenness that crept into his tone. “We always have. Last time, when you didn't believe me, you did one of your torture mind probes to determine if I was lying. Get it over with, so we can move on.”

Ren was silent at this intimate revelation, his cold stare uncomfortable as Hux knelt for him. That this was so unlike Ren continued to twist inside Hux, make him vaguely ill. He’d looked for so long, taxed the limits of his resources both financial and mental, and… Ren was here. Hux had won. But he was, so far, more unlike Ren than any of the others. This man was a stranger.

Ren shook his head. “You aren’t lying. Or you don’t think you are. I don't need a... torture mind probe to determine that. I can see your thoughts well enough. They are... unusually clear to me.”

“That's nice that you can do that without my knowledge, and not upsetting at all.  I'm glad that goes one way,” Hux snapped. “Please, feel free to my privacy.” It shouldn’t have made him so angry. In fact, he was immensely relieved that Ren seemed able to do it now without pain. It had never been painful between the two of them, though Ren had never managed the same level of skill with anyone else, as far as Hux knew, and certainly hadn’t the last time they’d met.

Ren came and laid a fingertip against Hux’s temple, bending his own grimy, stubbly face closer to Hux’s to stare into his face. “Really? I can see it all? You’ll show me why you’re here.”

Hux blinked and bowed his head. “Of course you can see it all. I'm not lying to you.” And because he couldn’t help himself, “You wouldn’t have needed to check, before. You trusted me.”

To his surprise, Ren ran his fingers over Hux’s hair. Hux looked back up, startled, to find that Ren wore the same stoic non-expression he’d had since they’d reunited.

“I trust _you_ ,” Ren said, dropping his hand and standing, walking away, showing Hux his back. “But I don’t trust whoever sent you.”

“ _Ren_ ,” Hux grit out. “If you need to search my memories, do it. _Nobody sent me_.”

Ren clenched his fists at his sides and turned back around, frowning now. “I don’t think I’ll find them in your memories. Anyone who was good enough to take you from my mind would be good enough to hide the evidence in your thoughts.”

“Take me…” Hux trailed off, closing his eyes, aching with frustration. “ _Take what_? Tell me what you remember.” He struggled against the bindings on his wrists, finding that the Force hold against his shoulders pushed back subtly as he did so. This Ren wasn’t… aggressive, had no reason to pin him here. But he seemed erratic, and a great deal more paranoid than Hux left him. Perhaps he should be, if he’d crossed Crymorah so badly that it had taken Hux years to locate him.

“I remember nothing. We’ve never met. I’ve never seen you.” Ren was back beside him, his hand on Hux’s hair, tucking the loose strands on his left side behind his ear. His expression was once again neutral, but this time, Hux felt the pressure of his regard, the barest edges of his awareness at the edges of his thoughts.

Hux closed his eyes, hanging his head, pulling away from his touch. “Then what is it that you know about me? Why do you recognize me?”

“I’ve seen you. _Felt_  you. Always, for as long as I remember. You’re different. The arm.” Ren held a hand up to his right shoulder. “You also… looked neater. Wore a uniform.”

Hux kept his face down. Ren was lying about the _always_  part. Had to be. Hux wasn’t sure that he could handle failing Ren’s expectations, of all people. The thought had never crossed his mind. “Then am I not who you want?”

The hand was on his hair again, pulling the tie from the back, and Hux looked up. There was still no emotion on Ren’s face, but Hux felt the pressure of him in the Force, and the moment Ren’s thoughts entered his own. He shuddered at the sensation of it, at their thoughts being so close again. He’d longed for it, this more than anything, in the long and quiet days and nights spent aboard his cramped transport.

He’d taken Ren for granted in every way, but the thing that had hurt most to lose was how close they’d been, even during the worst times, and how special that really was with Ren. There were so few people that understood each other completely, Hux thought. He’d kept himself guarded from Phasma as a defense, but even in his loneliest nights, he’d never sought social or sexual company with others, in group entertainments like drinking or gambling or watching races. Because it wouldn’t be Ren.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on the feeling of Ren’s fingers in his disgusting hair, in the warmth of the thin tendrils of affection Hux could feel in his thoughts. Ren wasn’t showing Hux everything, and Hux didn’t want to press. This beginning, even the barest hint of the link, was enough. This was Ren.

Ren murmured a confirmation.  “It is me. And I know it’s you. I've always known you.”

Hux opened his eyes.  He opened his mouth to ask a question, then closed it. He wasn’t sure he wanted the answer. It would hurt, after all this time, and Hux didn’t want to spoil the moment, though he was still bound and kneeling on the ground at Ren’s feet.

“Was I looking for you? No, I wasn’t.” Ren, of course, knew the question anyway.

The hand left Hux’s hair, leaving it to brush unpleasantly at his neck. Ren’s footsteps echoed through the huge, empty chamber as he walked away, but the warmth of their connection, of Ren’s pleased and surprised affection, stayed in his thoughts. Hux hoarded it like a Hutt.

Ren continued the explanation from across the room. “I didn’t think you were real. Just… what I wanted. What my desire looked like.”

“I’m real. Will you let me up?”

Ren waved a hand dismissively, and the pressure against Hux's shoulders disappeared. He got shakily to his feet and flexed the fingers of his flesh and blood hand behind his back. Ren was studying him, one hand on the ridiculous throne, and the edges of his thoughts darkened. Hux regarded him wearily.

“Why am I the only one overwhelmed by this? I tell you I want you, and you ask me to let you up?”

“I’ve always known that you want me,” Hux answered simply. “Would you want me to act surprised? Flattered? I'd be lying.”

They stared at each other, and though he felt Ren’s presence fill the aching, buzzing void in his thoughts, something about the situation unsettled Hux.

“You’re nervous. You never seemed nervous, when I saw you before.” Ren said, lifting his eyebrows.

Hux rolled his eyes. “Yes. That will happen when I find you…” Hux looked around. “On Starkiller. Ren this is… I don’t know what to say.”

Ren closed the distance between them. Because Hux’s hands were behind his back, he could do nothing as Ren’s familiar calloused hand held his chin, tipped his face up. This was still not the expressive, open man that Hux had spent so much of his life with, but the eyes were the same. They were still Ben Solo’s eyes, aching for acceptance, for someone to take him for who he was and not to use him for his powers.

Hux closed his own eyes, not willing to think about that, and Ren kissed him. His hands pulled against the bindings, and he wished his hand was free. He’d missed that too, and he felt the thrill of it across his skin, shivering at the barest touch of Ren’s chapped lips, inching forward to awkwardly press into the bizarre chainmail Ren wore. Hux badly wanted to touch Ren, felt the pressure against his wrist as he pulled at the bindings in frustration. Instead, Ren touched him. A hand came around to grip Hux’s whole left hand, and Hux relaxed his struggles.  Ren's other hand went to his ass, in a caress that Ren had been so fond of. A noise escaped Hux, along with three years of frustration and loneliness. Three years of telling himself that he was right, that Ren was alive, that Ren wanted him. That all this would be worth it.

It was. Even for just the kiss. He relaxed, feeling his whole body unclench under the feeling of Ren's hands and Ren's lips, the pressure of their chests pushing together. Hux was prone to tension and stress, but unwinding had never felt this... complete.  Necessary.  Satisfying.

Ren made a noise too, and Hux felt more of him in his thoughts, the affection, the same loneliness, the lust. Ren was more affected by the touches than even Hux was. Ren’s tongue slid into Hux’s mouth, warm and welcome, and they both made another noise of relief. He could sense how overwhelmed Ren was by even the suggestion of Hux’s small, narrow ass beneath the thick layers of his flight suit. Hux shuddered again at the memory of how this would feel when they were naked, and the thought of it went straight to his cock in a throbbing pulse of want that shouldn't have felt as shocking as it did.

Because he’d pictured that, too. He’d missed their unique connection, but he’d also missed the act of sex, which had been so infrequent even before all this. He’d imagined that, too, in his lonely nights, and cursed his father harder for the loss of his right hand.

“I wanted it too,” Ren murmured against his lips. Hux opened his eyes, and it was still just Ben Solo, free of the anger and frustration, the loneliness, the betrayal, the monumental fury that made up Kylo Ren.

Along with Ren's emotions, there was a familiar chill that seemed to work thin threads of agony into Hux's thoughts. Not much.  But just enough for Hux to see it for what it was - Ren's chill, the cold he sometimes brought back with him from Snoke's training. It was a sign that Ren was imbalanced. When they were sharing thoughts, the cold was nearly unbearable, and Hux had developed mental defenses against it over the years.

He did so now, pushing the cold from his thoughts while clinging to the thin threads of Ren's emotions. He didn't want to think about what that cold meant. Not now.

Ren stepped back. “I wanted it, too,” he repeated.

Hux, a little dazed, still stared at him, at a loss. This was… a lot. The moment hung heavily between them.

Usually, he’d let Ren read his thoughts, and he’d read Ren’s. But Hux had promised himself to speak more once he found Ren, and so he forced his thoughts out between them. “I’ve been… looking for so long, Ren. I don’t know what happens next.”

Ren shook his head. “The trials.”

Hux’s brow wrinkled. “The what?”

“Stand next to me.” Ren, having thoroughly shattered the significant moment between them, turned and approached that ridiculous dais, complete with a rough-hewn throne that reminded Hux unsettlingly of Snoke’s preferred seat on the _Supremacy_. He followed uncertainly.

“The trials. Fine, but… will you remove the cuffs?”

“No.” Ren sat, and though the warmth was still there, the edge of his thoughts no longer wound through Hux’s mind. Ren pointed to the right of the dais. “Stand there.”

“Ren, I don’t know that I can-”

Ren shook his head. “You will.”

“Will I?” Hux snapped. “Ren, I have no idea what kind of trial this is. I’ve been-”

“If you aren’t up for it, I can have the guards take you somewhere else.”

Hux’s mouth opened, then closed again, the situation once again spinning out of control. “The _guards_? Was that a _threat_ -”

“It was. Stand here.” He pointed again, then laid his head lazily in his other palm.

"Wait a moment! Just, give me- _Ren_.  This is a lot.  Can I have a few minutes to process all this?  Tell me what the trials are, first."

"We don't have any more time. We're already behind schedule."

Hux's mouth fell open in disbelief. " _Behind schedule_?  Are you joking? You keep a schedule here, and _I'm_ the one breaking it?"

"You are. I have to start the trials now. Just stand there. If you don't want to, the guards will take you away."

Hux weighed his options. This was new, and different, and he burned with humiliation. He was to stand cuffed next to Ren for... what? What kind of trial was this? Hux had been through many in his life. He didn’t particularly want one now, especially if it involved anyone aside from himself and Ren.

On the other hand, he didn’t think he could stand to be parted from Ren so soon. Whatever the trial was, Hux would simply have to endure. Ren’s expression still gave nothing away, and the idea of being taken away by guards was an intolerable humiliation, on top of leaving Ren.

So Hux shuffled, seething, into the spot that Ren had indicated.

“What’s your name?” Ren asked, glancing lazily in his direction.

“My… _name_?” His mouth opened in shock. Ren had never asked him this before. It tore at him. If Ren didn’t know that, what did they really share?

“I still know you,” he offered lightly. “It’s just a name. I don’t know what to call you.”

“Hux. My name is Armitage Hux.”

It came out sullen. Hux was pleased that his voice remained steady. Ren nodded. “Armitage.”

Before Hux could say anything more, Ren gestured, and the doors at the other end of the chamber opened. He hadn’t really taken a good look at the room before, and the heavy unadorned metal doors grated against the stone floor, echoing up into the tall, vaulted ceiling. It was unadorned save for the ring of low lights that ran partway up the circular walls. The walls were plain riveted metal, the arched ceiling made of beams that met in a dome in the center. There were no windows, no other doors in and out, just Ren’s tall dais in the center with a rough-hewn oversize wooden throne in the center of it. Hux's spot was next to the throne, on top of the elevated dais, in his dirty flight suit with his hair loose and his hands behind his back.

Two of the guards in powered armor entered, the giant metal monstrosities whining under the effort of the motors used to drive them. One of the guards was wearing a helmet, the other had a tiny human head, shaved bald and with an implant wrapped around it, perched above the humanoid metal frame that was nearly three meters tall. Hux wondered how they operated the armor, since their limbs would have been far too short for the visible elbow and knee joints. Perhaps the other had a large alien in it. One suit was a vivid light green, the other an awful shade of blue-green. Both had such large shoulder and knee plates that Hux wondered how the joints in the suits moved. Not very well, if the laboring motors that sounded every time they moved were any indication. They had large plasma pikes strapped to their backs that Hux doubted they could move their shoulders far enough to grab. Hux wondered what they would actually do in an emergency. He was fairly certain that he could run between them before they could react. Perhaps that’s why the more effective cybernetic guards did practical tasks like arrest visitors.

Then again, the large guards did look imposing, as long as one didn’t think about them. Hux could appreciate the value in that.

It was several moments before Hux realized there were two humans following the powered armor guards, hidden completely by their large size. One was wearing a long chainmail vest that matched Ren’s over a blue tunic and bare legs. He was barefoot. The other, a woman, wore something similar to Hux’s old uniform, gray, boots that reached her knee with tight pants tucked into the tops, and a tunic in gray with silver buttons down the front. Both of them had their hair covered in gray cloth, both appeared to be in their forties. The woman was walking with a particular kind of stiltedness that made Hux wonder if she had cybernetic enhancements in her legs, since that seemed to be a trend here - the guard had mentioned something about a 'Metal Brotherhood' in reference to Hux's cybernetic arm, so perhaps it was a colony devoted to cybernetic research and development. The man had one cybernetic eye, though both his hands were covered in long brown gloves, and it was possible they concealed other cybernetics.

Both were walking confidently, shooting disdainful looks at each other out of the corners of their eyes. When they reached Ren, both bowed low and deferentially, the man touching the cybernetic implant on his eye, the woman touching one of her knees.

“High Priest,” they muttered simultaneously before straightening and staring pointedly at Ren’s bare, filthy feet. Each held out a hand stacked with a lose set of gray metal disks, each with holes down the center. “We have brought the tribute, as required.”

Ren put a hand out and used the Force to lift the disks from their palms, floating both stacks over to himself. He let the disks drop into the cupped palm of his other hand, shifted them so they rattled lightly together, then deposited them in a limp roughspun pouch that hung from the side of the throne. The two people watched, fascinated.

Hux realized, astonished, that Ren was performing a parlor trick with the Force for their benefit. It was a petty use of his powers that he would never have considered before. Once, he had even called such things blasphemy when trying to explain why he hated such trivialities. Here, he did it without expression or comment. He returned to his previous casual posture and gestured, looking eerily like Snoke. “State the case.”

The man kneeled. “High Priest, Korta-Nyta was my assistant through last year. I taught her everything she knows about augmentation. I found out last week that she was using one of my designs and selling it as her own.” His hand came up to his face, covering his eye. “My own eye augmentation.”

The woman looked down at him, crossing her arms and not bothering to kneel. “It’s not your design. Mine actually has visual processing.” She looked at Ren, meeting his eye. Given how both had avoided his face when they entered, Hux took this to be a brazen action. “His has environmental sensors, but doesn’t have vision capabilities. My vision augmentation does.”

The man stood again, pointing and growing more agitated. “The technology was mine! I was building visual processing into my augment. She stole all my research and made it herself.”

Ren didn’t move from where he sat, slumped in his unadorned wooden throne, looking so much like a primitive king. Hux realized suddenly that he was exactly that, that these were _legal_  trials he was witnessing.

“Why did she leave your business last year?”

Korta-Nyta shook her head. “Tennio fired me. He refused to use any of my ideas in his designs. We fought about the visual augments. He didn’t speak to me for two weeks, then told me he no longer needed my services.”

Ren’s eyes looked at the man. “Tennio. Is that true?”

“I fired her,” he growled, his fists bunching at his sides. “She was being difficult. I needed her to do a job, not independent research.”

“Did you replace her?”

He dropped his eyes. “Yes. I have another assistant now. Jon-Nol.”

“So it wasn’t true that you no longer needed her services.”

He looked up, fear creeping into his eye. “No, that was true. Jon-Nol does the job he is told to do. Korta-Nyta was no longer completing the work.”

The hand against Ren’s face shifted up to scratch at his unkempt hair beneath the silver veil, the yellow stones set in the delicate netting winking in the low light of the filthy, high-vaulted metal chamber. “But there was still work that Korta-Nyta could have done.”

“She wasn’t working at all! And she stole my research when she left.”

Ren continued to stare at him. “So your augments also have visual processing now?”

“No, but-”

“I see.” He gestured, and Korta-Nyta bowed her head. One of the guards came forward, grabbing Tennio by the shoulder.

“No! She stole income from me! She cost my business money! She _took_ -”

“Nothing,” Ren interrupted, freeing his lightsaber from a belt concealed beneath his long tunic. Hux’s stomach twisted, and he knew what was coming next.

It looked like it affected Ren not at all. It usually hadn’t, when he’d done this sort of thing to people like this before. Ren passed his judgment with the same blank, neutral expression he'd used to speak to Hux. “She stole nothing. She offered her skills to you, and you refused her, so she left and made her own augments. Your customers left you, because your product was inferior.”

“ _She stole my customers_!” He roared. “My family is-”

“If your family is in danger, you would not be wearing replica priest armor, would you?”

Everyone in the room froze. Hux took this to mean the chainmail the man was wearing. It had some significance that he could not parse.

Tennio’s head dropped, shaking back and forth. “That’s in deference to _you_ -”

“No.” Ren stood, igniting his lightsaber. Hux noted, in a clinical, detached way, that it was Ben Solo’s deep violet blade, still with its focusing crystal. He shifted to feel tags he wore under his shirt swing and shift. He still wore them even after his defection, unable to bear parting with them. He was still paranoid about a stupid, accidental death even after all these years. And it was also where he'd kept Ben Solo's focusing crystal. He'd need a place for it, when he got it back from Ren.

“I see the problem,” Ren said, voice flat, as the lightsaber burned smoothly and without sound. Hux hadn’t seen one that worked in a long time, and he found he couldn’t stop staring. Ren decapitated the man with a single stroke.  He lunged forward, and in a flash the man's head was on the floor, the sweet smell of burnt human flesh in the air. There was nothing to it. The man hadn’t fought back, and Ren hadn’t even needed to exert himself. In a blink, the saber was deactivated and back on his belt, and Ren was taking his seat again, the chainmail he was wearing clinking together as he situated himself into another lazy slouch.

“Korta-Nyta. You may continue your visual augment research,” Ren said loftily. Korta-Nyta and the two guards bowed (or the two guards attempted it, bending slightly at the waist), and she turned and left, one guard behind her, while the other bent over in the cumbersome armor and retrieved the body and head of Tennio.

“Ren,” Hux hissed, after the three had left with the body of the fourth. “What was _that_?”

“The trials.” Ren’s head turned incrementally to look at Hux, his expression still betraying nothing, face cradled in his palm. “Anyone with a grievance with another citizen of Trebor is free to seek my judgment.”

“Do you always kill them?”

“My judgment is final, yes.”

Hux took a step closer. “Why?” He pulled at his wrists behind his back. “Why waste your time with this? How often do you do it?”

“There are sessions every day. Every grievance is settled. It can take several hours.”

“You stand here and… listen to these petty grievances, and kill whoever you like, all day, every day?”

Ren rolled one shoulder in a careless gesture. Hux felt the pressure of his regard with none of the associated emotion. “They come to me. They value my judgment.”

Hux shook his head, his eyes on Ren’s expression. Kylo Ren wouldn’t have had the patience for this. Kylo Ren wouldn’t have wasted his time.

“You used the Force to float those metal disks from their hands.”

“Yeah, their payment. Everyone has to pay twenty hob to enter the chamber.”

“And you use the Force to take it, because you love wasting your powers on useless gestures.”

Ren shrugged again. “It’s so that they know I’m who I say I am. They love it.”

Hux shook his head. Not even Ben Solo had been forced to perform in such a base way, and Kylo Ren did it freely, and of his own will. Apparently he preferred that cheap trick to actually commanding respect.

“They call you High Priest. Do you have acolytes?”

The corner of Ren’s mouth twitched, and he looked back at the door. “No. They worship… _machine-gods_  here, and technology. The augments…” he gestured vaguely in front of him. “They do that to themselves, because it brings them closer to their-” he gestured again. “I don’t know. But they think I can do miracles, that I was blessed by their machine-god, so they call me High Priest.”

Hux’s eyes widened. "Even without the cybernetics? Didn't they shoot Phasma for that?"

"The woman you came with? I don't know what they did with her. But yeah, they tried to execute me when I showed up, and I stopped them. They couldn't kill me, and eventually decided I was blessed. I went with it. And I never got the augments, no."  He frowned. "I don't need them."

"Do they?"

"Not medically. Culturally they do, I guess."

"So you're just... the, what? The High Priest of a cybernetic cult in Wild Space?"

Ren rolled his eyes, exasperation slipping through his defenses. " _Yes_. Do you need me to explain it one more time?"

“And you let them call you that?”

“There was a small settlement here when I found the planet. They venerated me, and brought others in from the surrounding systems. They kill other outsiders, so it was safe for me here. I didn't have to run anymore.”

“When you found the planet. Why did you come to this one?”

Ren’s gaze shifted to one of the blank walls of the room. “I don’t know.” His voice changed. He’d been using a firm, businesslike tone that was making Hux feel like he was being _managed_. This was more genuinely Ren, in his moments of doubt, when he needed a direction to move in.

Ren’s eyes went back to Hux, and his tone shifted back to assurance. “I did need a direction. You seem to think that this planet has major significance for the two of us. I don’t have any of the memories you believe we share.”

Hux thought that was a lie, but kept it to himself.

Ren continued. “I needed a planet that was isolated. The citizens accepted me, and valued my... skills. The arrangement was mutually beneficial. They're interested in keeping the planet isolated, and I am too. I don’t understand why you’re angry about this.”

“Convenient, then, that I know this planet too. What a coincidence.”

“It’s not a coincidence. But you know that. It’s the will of the Force.”

“Oh, then you do still believe in the Force?”

“Believe in it?” Ren’s mask slipped again, and Hux saw his confusion for a moment before it was hidden. “You’ve seen me use it. Felt it. Why would you ask that?”

“Because allowing yourself to be worshipped by others, supplanting their beliefs… you would have found it blasphemous!”

There had always been a part of Hux tempted by this technique, but he never would have suggested it to Ren before. Ren would have been furious. It was one of the few things Hux never tested him on, though Hux himself thought such beliefs simply made others easy to manipulate.

Ren stared at him a moment before replying. “Crymorah would have found me anywhere else. I did what I needed to survive. Certainly you can understand that?”

Hux dropped his eyes again, disgust crawling over his skin. "It's not a matter of survival. That's not the point."

“Whatever,” Ren said, sounding impatient, his voice dropping. “I don’t really care about the stories you told yourself about me.”

Hux didn’t have to read his mind to know this wasn’t true, and he made eye contact. He could see Ren looking at him out of the corner of his eye, and the annoyance that flickered across his face.

“And if we’re comparing fantasies, you were a lot different in mine. You always looked like the Imperial poster boy, running the show. But that’s not you. You look like you belong here with me.”

Hux felt a faint brush of the Force against the numb section of scarred skin against his neck, where he’d been hit by a piece of flaming debris. He took a breath, dropping his gaze again.

 

 

_”You can’t invade,” Ren insisted, removing his helmet after the last of the other officers had left the meeting chamber._

_“So you’ve said. Repeatedly,” Hux reminded him, annoyed. The meeting had run over nearly an hour, Ren belligerently engaging every officer who wished to move forward on the offensive against the Tiq._

_“It didn’t seem like you were listening.”_

_“That’s because I wasn’t,” Hux snapped, throwing his datapad down on the table. He realized that Ren wasn’t going to just forget this and go away. “Ren, we want to make allies of the Quot. In order to do that, we have to win their war against the Tiq_ _for_   _them.”_

_Ren was furious, glancing around the room and running a hand through his hair in agitation. Hux didn’t care. He was done with this conversation._

_“I don’t understand-”_

_“Then I can’t make you! Ren, we just sat through a three hour meeting about why we need to do this!”_

_“And I told you why we shouldn’t.”_

_“Because the Tiq_ venerate _the mountains we need to mine! That’s not a reason. The Quot hold them, so it doesn’t matter what the Tiq-”_

_“Just.” Ren closed his eyes, both hands in his hair now. Hux saw the warning in the gesture, that Ren was very likely to destroy this meeting room, or a lift, or a training chamber, if Hux disagreed with whatever Ren said next. Which he probably would. Hux picked up his datapad, irritated, and wished that he could put Ren to sleep as easily as Ren could do it to him._

_“I don’t put you to sleep,” Ren had snapped. “I’ve never done that to you.”_

_“It’s so easy to settle our disagreements,” Hux had murmured, keeping his eyes on his datapad. "I don't even need to argue with you, when you can just argue with my thoughts."_

_“Let me go planetside with a legion.”_

_“And do what? What are you going to do with one hundred Stormtroopers? Win the war for us?”_

_Ren stood abruptly and stomped over to him, a hand coming up to force the datapad back down to the table. Hux looked at him then, Ren’s expression furious and dark. Hux’s own expression was a careful show of indifference, but he was just as furious as Ren._

_“I don’t need your permission,_ General _.”_

_Hux clenched his jaw. It was true that Ren would go whether Hux allowed it or not. But if that was how it was going to be, Hux could push Ren farther before he left. He allowed himself a smirk._

_“But you want my permission.”_

_Ren held his gaze for just a moment before turning and gesturing to the door of the conference room. It slammed into its housing, sparking and bending out of shape. His helmet flew into his other hand, and he placed it on his head and locked it in place while turned away from Hux._

_Hux stood, letting his temper get the better of him._ _“Why is this important to you? All this, for… some primitive’s ideas of mountains, Ren?”_

_The helmet had turned to regard Hux over Ren’s shoulder. Hux always hated it when Ren wore the helmet when they argued, though his state of mind was always clear enoiugh. Ren’s rage had been coiling through Hux’s thoughts, childish and distracting, though Hux had long grown used to it. There had been a distinct twinge of amusement when Ren sensed his distaste for the mask, though._

_“The Quot are the ones who are primitive.” His voice came out flat through the helmet’s vocoder. He turned back to the sparking doorway, but didn’t walk through it. He kept his back to Hux._

_“The Tiq have culture and civilization. But I know why the First Order chooses to do business with the Quot. They have no art, hold no beliefs other than power and money.”_

_Hux should have let it go. Ren was angry, and Hux was better than this, knew better than to engage with Ren’s little tirades. But it was just the two of them, and he suddenly couldn’t stand Ren having the last word._ _He took a step forward, placing his hands behind his back, projecting calm as much as he could. A teacher instructing an unruly student. Condescension hurt Ren more than arguments ever did._

_“Power and money buys survival, Ren. No civilization or culture exists without it. I imagine that's difficult to understand for someone who was raised to take those things for granted.”_

_Ren paused, and turned slowly to face him. Hux couldn’t see his expression, still couldn’t discern the flavor of his rage. He couldn’t stop his own tongue._

_“Was it difficult to hate your family, when they gave you every comfort?”_

_Ren marched past him toward the center of the conference room, passing close enough that his tunic brushed against Hux. He ignited his lightsaber, and Hux did not turn around to watch as Ren made a mess of the table, then the consoles lining the far wall. Hux stared ahead, keeping his back to the tirade as if it interested him not at all. Ren’s fury pulsed around him in the Force, the throbbing strength of it dissipating to a dull ache by the time Ren deactivated his lightsaber, his shoulders shaking, his breath coming audibly through his helmet._

_Hux had turned to face him then. Ren spoke without looking at him._

_“What’s it like to believe in nothing?”_

_“Nothing?” Hux rolled his eyes. “I believe in myself, and I believe in our cause. It’s all I've had. Not all of us grew up with the luxury of our families telling us fairy tales to believe in.”_

_Ren stared at him through the mask, shocked disbelief ringing through their connection. Hux knew it was a step too far, but it was a stupid argument. He didn’t care who won, he just wanted the jotha ore from the planet. He should have just let Ren have his way, if he cared so much about which of the two societies controlled the mountains._

_But Ren was being an infuriating child. What did Hux_ believe  _in? What did Ren_ think _he believed in?_

_He suddenly realized that Ben Solo’s powers might have been the first fantastic thing he did believe, something that was too good to be true and was anyway. He turned away, his throat tight, fury making his pulse race._

_“Go to the planet with your legion of Troopers, Ren. Do what you will to the Tiq, the Quot, I don't care.” He had gestured to the sparking mess of the consoles, the glowing slices in the wall. “Don’t worry, I’ll pay for it, and any other expensive equipment you need to destroy while you make your way to the hangar.”_

_He’d turned and begun walking to the gaping hole where the door had been. To his surprise, he didn't feel rage from Ren at his retort, but self-loathing and loneliness._

_Ridiculous. Ren was upset because they fought and because he couldn’t control his temper. And what was Hux supposed to do about it? The idea of walking back and comforting Ren, of building his confidence back up, made Hux’s skin crawl. Ren could deal with the consequences of his own anger well enough. And it was true that Hux would take care of the wreckage. Ren certainly wouldn’t._

_Or perhaps Ren had reacted badly to the mention of his family. Hux didn’t care. He put the matter out of his mind as he walked down the hallway, away from Ren and towards other business._

 

  
Ren had taken his one hundred Stormtroopers and wiped out first the government, then the military of the Quot without losing a single Trooper, possibly to spite Hux’s remarks about his wastefulness. He had used a protocol droid to open negotiations with the Tiq, and the Order had obtained the minerals they needed anyway. They were mined below the surface, and the Tiq wanted only the mountains.

Ren had done that in three days, all for whatever it was that he saw in Tiq culture. Hux had hated how efficiently it was done, and had berated Ren for not doing that more often. It would have taken Hux and the other commanders at least a month to subdue the last of the guerrilla Tiq, whose nomadic villages were hidden in the sulphur bogs on Quittiq.

Hux hadn’t congratulated Ren at the time, or any time after that. He would have, if anyone else had done what Ren had done. For anyone else, it would have been an amazing accomplishment. But for Ren, it had been a petty rejoinder to an argument they’d had, and Hux had hated him for it.

In Ren's High Priest chamber, Hux kept his eyes fixed to the ground as he heard Ren shifting next to him. He felt bitterness surge up at the thought of Ren seeing that memory, instead of the usual fond annoyance at Ren’s voyeurism. This time, it felt like Ren had no right to the recollection, though he was in it.

Or, at least, some part of him was.

Hux straightened again as the doors opened. Idly, he wondered what he looked like to these people. He was filthy and ill-kept, but then again, so was Ren, and he supposed that didn’t matter. At least Hux was wearing boots.

The next person that entered was another human, this time borne on some sort of ill-made hoverpod. The engine struggled and whined as it jerked forward, the lights along the bottom flickering in and out, the silver metal sides missing rivets and badly dented and soiled.

The person’s head was covered in a gray cloth again, and they had a metal collar that dipped below the neckline of their beige tunic. Their legs were stretched out on the hoverpod, covered with a thin gray blanket. The legs appeared to be slightly larger in proportion to the rest of the person’s body. The hoverpod was accompanied by a medicinal smell. The armored warriors entered behind the pod this time, the sound of their powered armor nearly drowning out the pod’s struggling motor.

When the man reached the center of the chamber, he ducked his head as much as he was able. Hux saw that the man was ill, sweating profusely and short of breath, his skin flushed.

“High Priest,” he managed in a shaky mechanical voice, obviously struggling to speak. He held out a hand with more of the gray disks. “I have brought the tribute.”

Ren floated the metal disks from his hand again, stashing them in the bag on the side of the throne with a clicking of metal. Hux still couldn’t believe he took whatever passed for credits here. The man seemed to barely notice Ren’s trick, simply kept his head bowed. When Ren gestured to him, his voice wasn’t as hard as when the two others entered.

“You came alone. You require healing.”

“Yes, High Priest.” He struggled to raise his head. “I’ve been waiting… to gain entrance, to see you. My legs, the cybernetics aren’t taking.”

“Of course.” Ren was more kind, and he sat up to walk across the room, to the side of the hoverpod, pulling back the blanket in the man’s lap.

Hux grimaced. With the blanket back, the smell of blood and a bad wound was faint but discernible above the medicinal smell. His thighs were heavily bandaged, with fine gray-and-black cybernetics emerging below the wads of white bandaging. The bandages themselves were stained red and yellow, and seeping freely. The wounds were obviously infected, and his body was rejecting the implants.

Ren laid a palm on each of the bandages and closed his eyes. The man slumped back in the chair, his head lolling back, a relieved look on his face. After a few moments, Ren opened his eyes, turning to the man.

“Is that better?”

“Yes, High Priest. Thank you, High Priest.” His shaking hands moved towards Ren’s hands, but he seemed to think better of it, jerking back before he could actually touch Ren. Ren pulled the sheet back over his lap. This time, blood began to soak through it. The man wiped his face, smiling weakly.

“When will I be able to walk again?”

Ren cocked his head. “Two weeks. But only if your prayers to the Mechanicus are sincere. The god will take the life of the unworthy and save the true adepts of the Metal Brotherhood.”

The man shook his head. “Yes, High Priest. I’ll make sure to go to the hall of the hospital.”

“It helps.” Ren looked over to the guards. “Dismissed.”

“Thank you, High Priest.” The man slumped forward again, his face flushed, eyes closed. After a few moments of stillness, one of the guards approached, manually taking the controls of the hoverpod, and both escorted the man out.

Hux watched them leave. “You can’t heal people.”

Ren turned to him, startled. “Yes I can.”

Hux allowed his incredulity to show in his expression, and Ren rolled his eyes.

“Fine. They think I can, and they come here for it. So I do this.”

“You lay hands on them and lie.”

“What would you do? Tell them you can’t?”

“Yes! I would give them some fucking bacta and let a Medical Officer treat them.”

“There is a bacta shortage. We don’t produce it here. And they executed the medical techs as heretics.” Ren’s voice turned sing-song, and he looked to the doors again. “And the cybernetics reject more often than they should.”

“Then get them med droids! Or tell them to stop-” Hux paused, flexing the fingers of his cybernetic hand and feeling the ache that had never gone away. “You said earlier, they were necessary... culturally. Do they do that to themselves, for no reason? Or are there a lot of… accidents here?”

“Industrial accidents?” Ren turned to him, looking amused. “No. They do that to themselves. They call it initiation into the Metal Brotherhood. It brings them closer to the Mechanicus. They have med droids, but they develop them themselves. They aren't as nice as Republic droids. There aren't many droids here. They're considered full citizens.” He paused. "It's complicated. I don't ask about the droids."

Hux’s face folded in disgust. “They remove extremities for no reason? Are the cybernetics better here?”

“I wouldn’t know. Are they? You’re the one who’s initiated.”

Hux scowled, turning away. Ren using his powers like this, and taking advantage of the local beliefs, was still repulsive to Hux, mostly in contrast to Ren’s former attitudes.

“You’re upset, because you think I shouldn’t like this. But not because you think it’s wrong.”

Hux glared at him in response. Ren looked briefly amused, and continued.

“I can see it in your memories. You had… some sort of conditioning program? Where you manipulated the thoughts and beliefs of people you recruited, sometimes taking them from dire circumstances? Lies you told your Troopers and Officers about you and your… First Order?”

Hux turned to him, furious. “This is completely different. None of it is lies, and it’s done for the safety of all Order personnel. My conditioning is impeccable.”

Ren looked even more amused. “But it’s brainwashing. It’s worse than this.”

“I’m not _brainwashing_  them. Unified beliefs make for a more effective whole. My army was successful, and every… almost every member had a better life under the First Order.” If it had been anyone else, Hux would have claimed all of them lived better. This Ren may or may not have seen through the lie, but Hux could still not bring himself to say it aloud.

“Oh? They really do lead a better life? And you’re not power-hungry at all? Everything you do is benevolent, and not to conform to your own controlling design.”

Hux didn’t answer, knowing Ren would needle him anyway. None of that was true.

“Of course. The ways here are barbaric, and your Order has always been the sophisticated, Imperial follow-up it was meant to be.”

He hated Ren’s emphasis on ‘his Order,’ because Hux had always seen it as belonging to both of them, made by everyone involved. But as he fumed over Ren’s semantics, he felt a tugging in his head, a memory from childhood - the children in their thin, worn-out and ill-fitting uniforms, several of them coughing and sick with an unknown disease they all had. The Officer lecturing them, telling them that only weak wills broke under a cold, and that the First Order didn’t need weak wills.

It was a violation, an outrageous slap in the face for Ren to pull at his childhood memories like this. To remind him, to look at them at all, it was... Hux rarely talked about them, and he trusted Ren not to look. Or, at the very least, not to tell him he looked.

Ren could have it, could have any of it, really. But not like this.

Hux remained silent, refused to comment on it, knowing that saying anything would only make it worse. Ren snorted, and Hux didn’t look over. “You know they conditioned you, too. To stay.”

“I don’t care, Ren.”

He didn’t, not really. He had no real desire to go back to the First Order in its present form, not after all these years. He ought to care more about the lives he was no longer changing, the neglect and oppression that was happening underneath the nose of the New Republic.

It was his life’s work. But he’d barely given it a thought while he was hunting Ren. Even what he used to tell himself, that he sought Ren because he needed Ren to do his work with the Order, had fallen by the wayside. And now here was Ren, lazing next to him and selling his unique powers and violating Hux’s memories.

“ _Offensive_ ,” Ren pronounced. When Hux said nothing in response, Ren continued. “I don’t care what you think. You’re here now, side by side with me.”

“You don't care what I think? That's not true. And I think a lot of terrible things about you.” Despite himself, Hux was amused.

“I'm seeing that.” The corner of Ren’s mouth turned up, and he was more like himself. This silent observation from Hux made Ren all but smirk, his eyes catching Hux’s in the old way. Hux looked down at the ground. Perhaps it was just a matter of getting used to Ren. He was still Ren. They would learn each other again.

After a moment of silence between them, Ren gestured, and the doors to the hall opened again. This time, one of the guards all but carried one of the two people that entered. This person had no augments, and was dressed in a long gray tunic that was tattered and stained. His complexion was ashen, and tangled dark brown hair trailed out from under the gray cloth he had tied perfunctorily under his chin. He didn’t look up as he was drug into the chamber.

The other was dressed much as Tennio had been. A neat brown tunic under silver chainmail, which was polished bright and glinted in the low light of the chamber. His skirt trailed over boots, and he had visual augments over both eyes on a band that wrapped around the back of his skull. His head appeared to be shaved, though he still wore one of the gray kerchiefs that seemed common here.

The guard released their grip on the man who had been drug in, and he all but collapsed on the stone floor. The other kneeled smoothly and murmured “High Priest,” just as the others had.

The title turned Hux’s stomach. Ren was a Knight. Not this.

The well-dressed man reached into a pouch in his belt and offered a stack of metal discs. The one who wasn’t dressed as well took longer, pulled out fewer of the disks. Ren took them with the same mechanical, uninterested wave of his hand that seemed to fascinate the two paying tribute.

“What is your dispute?”

The well-dressed man spoke. “High Priest, this is the head of the Onnyoono clan. As you know, they would have no part in the maintenance of the orchards once they were taken for state use.” The well-dressed supplicant turned to glare at the other, who stared at the ground. After a moment, he faced forward again, still looking in the vicinity of Ren’s feet.

“He and his family have chosen a subsistence existence, living off the land around their former estate. Yesterday, I caught this one stealing from the orchard.”

There was a silence, and Ren turned to offer his chilly stare to the man dressed in tatters, still hunched on the floor.

“And why were you in the orchard?”

The man looked up. He was unshaven, filthy, and his skin was pale. Hux could see the tremor in his limbs, the dull stare in his eyes. “I was hungry. My children were hungry. It’s winter, and there’s little in the forests to eat. But the jammi trees are in season. We needed food for one week until the sylla fish migration downstream began, and there would have been plenty of food. My children had… their gums were bleeding, and my youngest doesn’t do anything but sleep. They needed the fruit.”

Kylo paused for a moment. “You could have worked the orchard and received the fruit. You know that. It’s for the greater good.”

The man shook his head. “I swore on my family name I would never work that orchard again once it was taken from me.”

“But you’d steal food from the mouths of the hungry.”

“It was my children who were hungry, High Priest.”

“Then perhaps their mother will have better sense.”

Ren stood, and Hux made a sound of protest as the lightsaber was activated and Ren took the man’s head in less than a moment. Before he could say anything, Ren held a palm back, holding him in place. Hux could feel the blood throbbing in his head, the pressure of Ren around him. He nearly shook in the hold, absolutely furious.

“He had broken a law,” Ren said casually to the well-dressed man. “There was no contest.”

The man bowed. “It was his land, and he refused to be taken by the others. He appealed on behalf of the High Metal Brotherhood to speak to you.”

Ren huffed. “Well, perhaps he just wanted to see my powers before he died.”

“It will be a sight I will cherish, High Priest. Long live the Mechanicus.”

And with that, the guards left with the well-dressed man. Before the doors shut behind them, Ren called out.

“Give me a moment before the next supplicants.”

When they were alone, he turned to Hux. The freeze lifted, and Hux took a step forward, furious.

“You killed him! For feeding his children, they were starving-”

“They stole. It was against the law.” Ren frowned. “It’s easy to get food. He would only have had to ask.”

“He didn’t!” Hux hissed. “He just needed. He was hungry, the children were _hungry_ -” He closed his mouth, ran his tongue around his teeth. Seething. He remembered being hungry, he remembered the others losing their teeth during the worst of it. He’d kept his teeth because his father had made sure to give him the supplements. Other officers and troopers that lived in the First Order then were not as lucky. Most that lived did not have a full set of original teeth.

“Ah.” Ren took a step closer. “I see. You didn’t like that.”

“If the food was going to the greater good anyway, what harm was there in his poaching?”

“The farms are taken to feed all. What if one of your Troopers was stealing rations?”

Hux pressed his lips together. “I wouldn’t kill them. They’d get sanitation duty.” That was true. Issues like defection and smuggling and espionage were worthy of execution. Stealing food never had been. Stealing food from someone else sometimes got you executed. But not like this.

Ren cocked his head. “I didn’t realize you cared so much.”

Hux turned his head away. He hated having this brought up. He hated thinking about it.

“Fine. We don’t have to talk about it. But this isn’t going to work today. You’re distracting, and you don’t understand the laws.”

“I don’t understand any of this! You sit here, lording your powers over-” Hux stopped, shaking his head. “You choose to do this. Of all the things, you ran away from home and chose _this_. A performative waste of your gifts.”

Ren was silent for a moment, his shuttered expression studying Hux. “You asked about the cybernetics here earlier. If they were any good.”

At that, Hux’s blood ran cold. He thought of the man earlier who had been so clearly dying. He did not look at Ren, kept his head turned to the side.

“I think they’re better than the one you have.”

“I’m fine,” Hux said tersely. “I don’t need another.”

“No. I think you do. It will… bring you closer to the machine god.” When Hux looked at him again, Ren smiled, and it was cold. Hux stared at him, trying to parse what this was, where it was going.

Ren continued to smile at him, reading every single one of his thoughts, his questions. Where was this going? What were Ren’s plans for this planet, its people? What were Ren’s plans for Hux? What was Hux’s role, to be _by his side_?

Ren answered none of these questions. Instead he gestured, and the powered armor guards came in, dragging Hux away, still with his hands cuffed behind his back.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They took his cybernetic arm, and they took the interface from where his arm had been amputated. They did this without anesthetics, though Hux ultimately didn't mind - the cybernetic was so poor that the neural interface was what was causing Hux’s pain. There was still an uncanny sensation that he could move an arm that wasn’t there. A slight ache. But it was a relief, not having that arm anymore.

The aging med-droid didn’t care about Hux's relief, and seemed to ignore what Hux told it about his pain. It advised that he would feel more pain later, and gave him doses of medication for sleeping and pain relief for the overnight cycle. When the droid was finished, the guards came back in. They were the heavily augmented, more useful kind, though they weren't being particularly useful now. The droid had taken his clothing as part of the exam, and the guards had come in empty-handed. They stared at Hux as he sat naked and armless on the exam table. Hux sneered back at them. 

“Would you like to cuff me again?”

One of them took him up on his offer, striking Hux with an open palm directly across his mouth. He could feel his lip catch on a tooth, tasted the blood. He made a point of licking the blood from his teeth showily, maintaining eye contact with the guard.  He touched his face, and found the cut on his cheek from earlier had also begun to bleed again. He had not been offered a mirror, but it didn't feel deep enough to scar.

The other guard grabbed him around the waist and threw him over her shoulder. And like that, the two of them began passing through the dim, dirty hallways of Ren’s complex, her cybernetics humming, Hux completely naked.

Being naked bothered him not at all. He wondered if it was meant to be a punishment or humiliation. Perhaps they were meant to see his lack of augments. He would have to ask Ren later. They didn't pass anyone else, so if it was meant to be a show, it had failed. Hux wondered if this was the High Priest complex, if the citizens of the planet lived elsewhere, above or below ground. How far did they come for Ren's judgments?

He was taken to a duracrete ‘fresher, where another round of guards, these with only small mechanical augments - a hand here, the hum of an implant below their shirt there. He was hosed off with cold, but real, water. It was bracing, and ultimately wonderful. Hux had lived aboard a small transport for years, and had rarely taken a real water shower since the start of all this. Shivering, he reveled in the feel of the water rolling over his skin, the bounty of the snowmelt from Starkiller. He recalled the ample water supply the planet had provided for the base previously, and what a luxury it had been. The temperature could never truly bother him. Part of Hux would always enjoy a shower with real water.

And it felt so _good_  to get rid of that awful cybernetic arm. He smirked, pushing his hair out of his face with his hand. He wasn’t sure what was happening, if this was good or bad treatment, but they would have to try harder if this was meant to be torture.

He was given basic grooming supplies, including scentless soap, some sort of shampoo, and some shaving tech. He used it all one-handed, and gladly. He deliberated for only a moment after washing his hair, and used the shaving tech to shave himself bald rather than leave his hair long. He felt immediately lighter, more himself, even one-armed, bald, and naked in the bowels of Starkiller.

He tried not to think of Ren, of what would happen to Hux later today, or the next day, or the next week. This Ren was erratic, and so different as to be frightening even to Hux.

But, absurdly, it had been his comment on Hux’s appearance that had hurt the worst, that Hux had been different than the regulation tidiness he’d seen in his visions, or whatever he had here. Hux had always felt self-conscious around Ren, who was fit, muscular, and better-looking than himself. As Ben Solo, he’d insisted that Hux was attractive, but it had always felt like empty flattery. Such comments on his appearance had always been followed by something awful when he was growing up, usually by someone older and larger than himself. In his deepest, most private thoughts, one silly insecurity that persisted was that Ren was lying about finding Hux attractive, simply saying it because he felt he had to.

That, in some ways, had hurt worse than the violation of his memories, or even that Ren was committing what he himself would have considered blasphemy. Ren had always been fond of his hair, but if Hux couldn’t have it cut properly, he wouldn’t wear it sloppily in front of Ren.

When the water was turned off, he approached the door and was handed a floor-length grey tunic with billowing sleeves that was both too short and too large for him. He was also provided with a gray cloth, presumably to tie over his now-shaved skull, since everyone seemed to wear them but Ren and the guards. He did so.

He was more sure that he was somehow being punished when the guard pushed him into a prison cell. The walls were beige duracrete, curved into the floor and ceiling, and only the barred entrance led out of the cell. There was a covered hole in one corner, a bed, and a sink, and a single overhead light that buzzed.

He smirked again. He’d had worse. He stretched himself out on the bed, dropping his forearm over his eyes to block out the light, and waited for Ren, certain he would come for him here.

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
Hux stood when Ren entered the small cell sometime later. He thought it was hours, but he couldn’t determine the passage of time here, didn’t care to. It didn’t really matter anymore. It had been one of the things that he’d had difficulty growing used to - aside from the hits he’d carried out against Crymorah, he had no daily schedule to keep. Now that he didn’t have Crymorah as an enemy anymore, the passage of time meant less than it ever had.

Ren stood just inside the barred doorway, cleaner than he had been. He was still barefoot, but he had obviously showered and put on a clean tunic. He still wore the ridiculous chainmail and the silver veil with yellow jewels in his hair. His eyes still burned into Hux's, dark brown and somehow bright in the dimness of the cell.

“You’re surprised to see me.” His expression was still neutral, his voice still flat. He cocked his head, the metal and jewels in his hair quietly chiming together. “Why? You spent three years looking for me.”

When Hux said nothing to this, Ren continued, his eyes narrowing.

“And… time before that. You found me… twice before that. And… you remember us meeting before. How romantic. You really don’t seem the type.”

Hux’s eyes dropped to Ren’s fingers, twitching by his side, and he burned with shame. He wanted Ren in his head, but not like this. There was no pain, but it felt like Ren was using his powers to outmaneuver Hux in a personal war that Hux wasn’t sure how to wage.

“Why are you so ashamed of your memories? And why is my sharing them a violation? I’m in all of them.”

Hux remained silent. As good as it was to have Ren back, more and more, this Kylo Ren was a stranger, a person Hux did not know.

But perhaps they just needed to know each other. Ren had never been a stranger to him. The sensation would go away soon enough.

Ren continued, his expression the same neutral mask. “If you’re worried about how I feel, don’t. I love you. I always have. Even when I didn’t know you were real.”

 _I love you. I always have_. The words made Hux shiver. He put his arm around himself, but stayed standing, calves pressed against the bed.

“And you love me too,” Ren continued. “You worry about that. But in your memories, I’m sure I knew it then, too. And I know it now. It’s impossible that I wouldn’t. It’s in every thought you have of me.”

At that, Hux did close his eyes, unable to continue looking at Ren, not sure if he could listen to his feelings reflected back at him so dispassionately. Ren said it as if it was a flat truth. If it was, it wasn’t one Hux had known. Since his life had been up-ended, seeking Ren had left his sleep troubled, and not just because of the empty bed.

In the years of his searching, he’d had a lot of time to consider what he would say to Ren when they met again. Part of this process had been the realization that his motivations for finding Ren were purely selfish. In the past, time after time, he’d answered Ren’s affection in his own way - _I didn’t ask, I don’t want it, what am I to do with your love_. He’d told himself that Ren knew him, that it was a real answer. But over the past three years, he wondered if that was true. He’d told himself that when he found Ren again, he would say it this time, and mean it. And perhaps Ren knew, and he'd always known. But he might also find a Ren that didn't want him, that didn't care. But part of the selfishness was that he would need to say it anyway, regardless of how Ren felt about it.

“You don’t have to say it.” He heard Ren take a step, and he opened his eyes again. “You can’t hide anything from me.”

“You said you don’t remember me. That you didn’t- have dreams, or visions. We don’t share memories. You don’t know me. You can’t.”

“Mmmm.” Ren stepped closer, and ran his fingers underneath the gray cloth on Hux’s head and over Hux’s shorn scalp, grunting in disapproval. Hux leaned into his touch, hating himself. “I saw you in my mind, and I invented a whole personality for you, what you would be like if you were real. I was right. And you have all these… memories of our lives together. You seem to hate that I’m looking for them. But I want them. I want all of them.”

On the last, Ren’s voice shook slightly on his last sentence, as if he hadn’t admitted to what he wanted for a long time. Hux's eyes widened in surprise just as Ren leaned forward and gave Hux a chaste kiss. Hux dropped his arm to his side, not opening his mouth for it. Ren didn’t, either. He could feel the pressure of Ren’s presence, around him and in his mind, but couldn’t feel his emotion in the kiss - his affection, his need, his passion. He pulled back, and Ren put a hand on his shoulder, opening his eyes.

“If I had met you when. When you think you met me. If you had appeared when I was a Jedi student, and I sensed your absolute attention, your focus on me?” His hand moved down from Hux’s shoulder, to his waist. “In your memories, my love of my family stopped me.” He betrayed an emotion at that, a smirk. “It wouldn’t have. I would have come with you. I would have never betrayed you like that.”

“You didn’t betray-”

“That’s not what you think,” Ren interrupted. “You never trusted me the same after that.”

Hux felt his face burn. That was… true, but their relationship had been different in the Order, and with Snoke, hardly the idyllic fling they’d shared on Hosnian Prime and Exitens.

“No. You hold a grudge. I’m lucky you let me back at all. But our lives are bound, and you had to. You seem to believe this, which is good. It’s true. It means you can stay here with me.”

Hux’s blood ran cold at that thought.

“Ren,” he began. “Do _what_  here?”

Ren pressed their foreheads together. “First, I need to find the person that sent you and altered your memories.”

Hux jerked away. “You just… you saw them. They’re real.”

Ren shook his head, reaching out and grasping Hux’s hand. “They aren’t. Not really. I like them anyway. I think you must have made them yourself. They're too personal to be someone else's fabrication.”

“They’re more real than-” Hux had lost his well-honed persuasion skills, it seemed, cooped up on his transport with Phasma. But he’d never really needed it with Ren. He let his anger guide his tongue.

“What are you doing here, Ren? What is this- this _world_  you’ve made with all these poor people that come to you for execution? How could you make this spectacle of yourself, how could you _do this_? When we had Starkiller together, you killed all these people!”

Ren looked startled, unable to mask it from Hux. Hux was pleased that Ren’s more genuine emotions were showing more and more. “I did? Why?”

“Why do you do anything, Ren! Why are you doing this? Back then, you did it because you were angry and felt trapped. Why did you cross Crymorah here, why did you have to take shelter on Starkiller?”

“Starkiller,” Ren repeated, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Did you name it?”

“ _Ren_.”

“I’m here for the same reasons you said I killed all these people before. I didn’t know what else to do. I went to Crymorah, but they only used me. I felt angry and trapped. What else was I supposed to do?” The flatness had come back into his voice, a dull look back in his eyes. “Should I have stayed with my uncle and become a Jedi?”

“No, that never would have worked.” Hux tried to pull his hand away, but Ren kept a grip on it, brought a second to hold him in place. Hux stared for a moment, his gaze darting to Ren’s own inscrutable face, but he continued. “When did you leave your uncle? Why?”

“Why should I tell you that?”

“Because you’re holding my hand in a prison cell, Ren. It’s me. You just finished telling me how much we loved each other.”

“Then you tell me. You were the one that was looking for me. You seem to think you know me, too. Or whoever you think I’m supposed to be.”

Hux rolled his eyes. “As if I've ever been able to learn why it is you do anything. You ran away from your uncle when you were twenty. Again. Did he try to kill you in your bed again, or was it the Darth Vader thing?”

Hux saw a flicker of emotion, the old rage, his authentic Ren. “You can’t know about that. No one knows but Luke, and he would never tell.”

“Luke is dead. Leia told me.” It had been part of the information Hux had requested when they were researching the location of the Trebor system. It had been a disingenuous question, since he'd been planning to use Luke's location as a lure for Ren without telling Leia. But it hadn't been an issue.

Ren’s eyes hardened. “I felt it when he died.”

“Did you do it?”

“No.”

Somehow, the emotionless Ren-stranger seemed more capable of it than his own, rage-filled version of Kylo Ren.

“He died under mysterious circumstances.”

“I don’t know what killed him.”

“It wasn’t Crymorah?”

“No. I didn’t know where he was, but I would have done it myself. I was Crymorah’s best assassin for a time.”

Hux’s mouth turned down in distaste. He remembered the executions from earlier in the day, committed with Ben Solo’s violet lightsaber. That was worse than if it had been Ren’s. It wasn't something Ben Solo would have done.

The thought was too sentimental, and Hux dismissed it before Ren latched on to it. “Senseless. Why would you commit murder for a syndicate? When we met, you joined the First Order because you believed in our cause.”

"Did I? Or did I join the First Order to be with you?"

Hux's frown deepened. He remembered the first time Ben had come back from Snoke's training, how he'd told Hux he loved him. "No. You agreed with what we were doing."

“Well.You tell me why I was with Crymorah, then.”

Hux tried to pull his hand back, and this time Ren let him. He sat down on the bed. Ren hovered over him, grabbing the cloth that covered his head and discarding it on the floor as if it offended him. He ran his palm over Hux’s bare scalp again, and Hux leaned his face into Ren’s touch, still hating himself for the weakness. He was angry, and Ren was acting irrationally. But Hux craved the touch he’d taken for granted for so long, even from this stranger-Ren.

He wasn’t sure if Ren’s request had been rhetorical, but he speculated on Ren’s life anyway, unwilling to sit in awkward silence. “You decided to join your father’s business after you left your uncle’s academy. You can never get along with your parents for very long, so I think your father’s smuggling contacts put you in touch with Crymorah. You delivered for them for years, and apparently killed for them, until you stole a fantastic sum of money and left without a trace. To form a machinist cult on a planet we weaponized together in order to take out the New Republic.”

“But you didn’t answer your own question. Why?”

 _Because I wasn’t there to stop you_ , Hux thought, pained.

Ren snorted, his fingers tightening on Hux’s head. “What could you have done to stop me?”

Hux sat back up, angry again. “I would have found you, and we would be doing something more meaningful.”

“Like what?”

“You’ve seen my memories. What we did with the Order. We helped people. You helped people. Used your powers… not for these kind of public spectacles.”

Ren stared at him a moment, still with that flat expression. “And wasn’t it those public displays that attracted you to Ben Solo in the first place? Back when you were young, and we first met?”

Hux turned away. “It’s not the same.”

“Why? Because you’re not the one exploiting my powers? Because I’ve made my own life?”

“I never exploited you. What we did, we did together.” Hux still believed that, even after all the time he’d had to meditate on how he might have treated Ren badly. He’d never been able to convince himself that he’d exploited Ren’s powers, though Snoke certainly had.

"We did it together? And all of it was for me?"

"No, of course not. For the good of the Order-"

"I like your memories of our first meeting," Ren interrupted, his expression slipping into predatory, his eyes going hard. "You treasure them. How you came to meet me in order to recruit me for the good of the Order. The careful speeches you planned, the ways you planned on manipulating me and tricking me into joining."

"I. Didn't trick you, you spoke to me first-"

"I did. How convenient for you, to fall back on that."

 Hux clenched his jaw. He thought of the holo of the two of them together, the one he'd kept and admired over the years. After Ben had come back a year later, he'd never been ashamed of what happened during their first meeting, or what his intentions had been. He had wanted to recruit Ben Solo using any means necessary. He was an asset, and Hux was right about that. But that trip hadn't gone at all how Hux had planned. In some ways, Ben Solo had just as effectively tricked and manipulated him.

To have Ren throw that back in his face, along with a comment about how he _treasured_  the memory. He didn't want to think about any of that right now. Ren didn't even think any of it was real. What did it matter to him?

Ren sat next to him on the thin mattress, put an arm around his waist. It felt placating, like an empty gesture, after having so thoroughly called Hux's motives into question.

"You're right, none of it is real. I think it's funny, that you can't see past what you tell yourself. In your memories, you all but kidnapped me from my uncle. Can you at least see that?”

“You’re the one that said you would have come with me willingly if I had shown up and given my full attention.”

“Just because I would have given myself willingly doesn’t mean you weren’t exploiting me.”

Ren kissed his cheek, rubbing the side of his face with his nose. These weren’t things that Ren did, and Hux was uncomfortable. He shifted, growing indignant. “I never _used_  you. I told you, everything we did, we did together.”

“No. You thought you were saving me from myself. We did everything together because you thought I was some sort of achievement. Later? Working with me was a chore.”

“I was-” Hux’s throat grew tight, and he swallowed, reminding himself of the amends he would make to whatever version of Ren he found. “I was wrong. You were never a chore. And we always did everything together. Including getting into this whole mess.”

Ren blinked at him, then leaned in again, bringing their lips together, brushing just shy of a kiss. “Yes. I see it. Our lives are bound.”

Hux grunted, and this time he was the one who raised his hand to Ren's head, pulled him closer, opened for his kiss. They had fallen out of the habit of kissing, even as many times as Hux had kissed him during their brief post-Ventu reunions. He had promised himself that he would kiss Ren a lot more when he found him again.

It lasted several long moments. When they stopped to breathe heavily, Ren pulled back, giving him his crooked smirk, looking so completely himself that Hux let a huff of laughter escape.

“Kissing me a lot more. I like that.” He leaned in and kissed Hux again, and Hux let him. It was briefer this time, but Hux let his fingers sink into Ren’s hair, kept him close even when Ren pulled away after just a moment. When Ren spoke, Hux felt the warmth of his breath on his lips, and he shivered.

“I’ll keep you here. We’ll be together. We found each other.”

Hux pulled back, something cold rushing through him again. “Ren. We can’t stay here. This place is…” _Insane_ , he wanted to say, but it was better appointed than many worlds he’d seen. But nothing good would come of them in a fanatical place like this, especially where Ren was worshipped like a deity. In his experience, such situations were always volatile, and it was difficult to predict how devout, or those holding different beliefs, would react. It wasn’t safe. “We need to leave.”

Ren shook his head. “I know you think you can tell me what to do. You can’t. We’re staying.”

Hux huffed again, because it was so much like one of their old arguments, except Ren was holding him in a prison cell, and he had no way out.

“Tell you what to do? Ren, when you chose what to do, you made a _machinist cult_.”

“And that’s worse than your fascists?”

This stung, mostly because Ren never made light of the Order. He knew better. “It is,” he said. “Because my cult has a _point_ , Ren, and I do more than sit in a chair and execute people at my feet all day.”

“Do you? What do you think the rejected Stormtroopers would say about that? Or…” His expression changed, his brows drew together. “That. With Starkiller. You just… killed everyone in the Hosnian system.”

Hux stood, began pacing the cell, agitated. He had nothing to say to that. And besides, it was no longer true. Those people were alive and well. “We have to leave, Ren.” He glanced at him, got no read on his mental state. “This place is changing you for the worse. It will get to me, too, if I stay here.”

Ren shrugged. “It’s fine. We’ll be fine here.”

“Neither of us are suited to this!” He threw his hand up in frustration, then ran it over his scalp, facing the barred entrance to the outside. It was unlocked, and even hanging open a crack, but where would he go?

“We have to go back to the Order. It’s all we know.”

Ren snorted. “Go back. I saw the last time you tried to get me to go back. I said no. I wouldn’t go with you because I hated something there worse.”

“Snoke,” Hux muttered, his mood darkening. “I don’t even know if he’s there right now.”

“Don’t lie to me, Armitage. You can’t.”

“Hux,” he snapped. “Don’t fucking call me Armitage, like a complete stranger.”

“You are!” Ren shouted, standing up. “You show up here and, what? Claim that you run my life now? That I’m supposed to follow you back to some… oppressive organization where we’re both miserable?”

“Yes! It’s all we know how to do!”

“It’s not! I know how to do this. Stay here.”

“And do what, Ren? Stand beside you while you make a spectacle of yourself in front of people who don’t know any better? What kind of life is that for you? For me?”

They were toe to toe, nose to nose, and the fury practically thrummed around them. Ren had never stood up to Hux like this before, not really. Hux didn’t force him like this version of Ren thought. Ren did things with Hux because he liked it, because he believed-

Hux’s mouth pulled down, and he shuddered. “No,” he murmured.

 _No_. But this argument was pointless. He buried his face in his hand, sat on the bed, his elbow on his knee. But he looked back to Ren. There was something else he’d been thinking about while looking for Ren, something else he’d considered. It was something Ren had expressed interest in. Something that Hux wouldn’t have told him to do.

“You said you wanted to kill my father.”

“Kill your father?” Ren looked taken aback for a moment, but his expression blanked again as he helped himself to Hux’s memories. “I did want that. And so do you, even though you seem to think it would be for me. But you didn’t kill mine when you found him.”

Hux shook his head. Thought of Starkiller. “You don’t really want your father dead. I didn’t kill your mother, either.” He smirked. “I would have killed your uncle, if he had let me. I wouldn’t have asked him to help me find you. I never have. You wouldn’t have spoken to me.”

“I wouldn’t have,” Ren hissed, once again looking more like himself, And it was that, more than anything, that seemed to shatter whatever composure he had in this place, knock the impersonal mask aside.

“Armitage. _Hux_.” He sat down on the bed again. “I’m not going to do any of this. We’re going to stay here.” He blinked at Hux, his gaze drilling into him. “Do you understand?”

“I do.” He looked away, his insides burning to ash. He understood. Nothing he could say would convince Ren to move from this planet.

 _Our lives are bound._  Through the good and bad. And they were staying here.

Ren kissed his cheek again, whispering into his ear, his breath hot and heavy. “Yes. You found me, and I found you."

“What kind of life is this, Ren? What purpose does it serve?”

“I stay alive. And we’re together now.”

“Living and being together is not purpose.”

“Yes. I see that it was never enough for you. But you’ll like it.” His fingers went around Hux’s shoulder, feeling the dead place where his arm once was. “You’ll get your arm back.”

Hux smirked, meeting Kylo’s eyes, which looked alive again, and just on the edge of manic. It was how he looked after he came back from Snoke, rambling about how much he missed Hux. “Will I get to wear one of those powered guard suits?”

Ren let out a huff of laughter. “If that’s what you want. I’ll have one made.”

“Then I’ll be your knight,” Hux mused. “Honestly. Do they really fight in those?”

“They fight each other. They have tournaments once a month.”

“I could disable one of those with a tiny blaster.”

“You could. They fight each other with chainsaws.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“I almost want to train Troopers here just for the pleasure of beating them.”

“You can if you want.”

When Hux made no reply to that, he felt Ren’s hand move down to his waist and pull him closer. Hux leaned in, focused on the feeling of his hand through the thin fabric of the shapeless tunic, the warmth of his side pressing in. He closed his eyes.

“This would be easier with alcohol, Ren.” He opened them and looked over. “Do you have that here?”

“I do, but I don’t often drink.”

“I know.”

“Do you really need it to be intimate with me?”

Hux nodded. “It would help, I think. It's been a long time. Drink it with me?”

Ren exhaled, but stood, and to Hux’s surprise, left the cell to retrieve it himself. Hux didn’t fail to notice that Ren had left the cell door ajar. It was a good sign. It meant Hux wasn’t a prisoner, not really. Perhaps Ren would take him back to his rooms, whatever those were.

“I sleep down here,” Ren said a few moments later, apparently having walked down the hallway silently. Hux jumped.

“In the prison? Why?”

“My enemies won't find me here, or believe that it’s me.”

“The jewels in your hair would give you away.” Hux reached up and grabbed the delicate silver veil from Ren’s hair, putting it on his own head. Ren stared a moment, then handed Hux one of two metal cups, pouring from an unlabeled bottle he’d brought.

When Hux brought it to his nose, he jerked his head back, scowling. “What is this?”

“Jet juice.”

Hux had heard of it, mostly from the old Imperials. It was home-brewed alcohol, the consumption of which was a rite of passage. The First Order had provided cheap alcohol rations to both Officers and Troopers to avoid these kind of homemade blends, which had associated health risks.

Hux glowered at Ren, but tipped the cup to his mouth and let the foul taste spread across his tongue, burn down his throat and fall like a lead weight to his stomach. He very nearly gagged on it, and was even more annoyed when he turned to Ren and found that he’d taken the whole shot.

“Fuck you,” he gasped, holding his cup out. “Top me off.”

Ren smirked, more like his old self, pouring out another measure for Hux and refilling his own cup. Both took a shot, and once again Hux gagged on it.

“I thought you were the drinker between us.”

“I didn’t see you as the High Priest type, either.” He reached across, pouring Ren another cup and topping off his own again, and the two of them drank, Hux getting the whole shot down this time.

“Is that enough?” Ren asked. His tone was brash and angry, but also slightly hesitant, and was so authentically Ren that Hux did, in fact, immediately lean over and kiss him deeply, just the way he had imagined doing since he’d woke up in this version of reality. He suddenly missed the use of his right arm very acutely. He was used to the feel of it on Ren, and one hand simply wasn’t enough. He heard himself groaning, which was ridiculous, not something he did. But he'd also promised himself that, if he found Ren, he would do what felt right.

So he did. He shifted, wrapping his arm around Ren’s neck and straddling his lap, feeling both of Ren’s hands around his waist. His lips were warm against Hux’s own. Still chapped, but it was wonderful, and this time, Hux opened his mouth, grunting when Ren’s tongue slipped in. Hux sucked on it, pulling back carefully to study Ren’s face.

Ren’s look softened into something very tender and Ren-like. “You missed me.”

Hux rolled his eyes. “You were much less obnoxious when you didn’t call attention to every thought I have.”

“Armitage. Please.”

“Don’t call me Armitage,” he snapped. “You never have.”

“ _Hux_.”

And it was Ren’s usual pleading, his usual overwhelmed facial expression. It was the genuine way that, in the best times, he seemed to lose himself to Hux. Hux had somehow forgotten all of it, the bits and pieces he’d held in his memories nothing like having Ren again, warm in his grasp. He buried his face in Ren’s shoulder, unwilling to look him in the face to say what came next.

“Yes, I missed you. I went to a great deal of trouble to find you.” He rolled his head to the side, his lips against Ren’s neck. “And I threw my life away to come here, didn’t I? To live with you together in this prison cell you picked out for yourself.”

“You didn’t want that life anyway.”

“I had a nicer bed.”

“Mmmm… not this time?” Ren’s voice inflected up, seeming unsure of this.

“This time doesn’t count. I can do better.”

“Your father took your arm.”

Hux straightened, scowling. “And you won’t even help me kill him.”

Ren exhaled, his face falling into a neutral mask again. “No. We’ll see.”

Hux moved on, pulling on the ridiculous chainmail Ren wore. “Off. I want to see you.”

“No.” He leaned in close, capturing Hux’s lips again. His eyes were closed, and he pulled back after a moment, just far enough to speak. “I’ve waited so long to have you. I don’t want to stop touching you.”

Hux smirked, leaning in to kiss him again, feeling like he hadn’t since they'd first met. But even then, their passions had run hot immediately. This time, he felt like he could take his time, that he really could spend all night kissing Ren.

But it hadn’t been fantasies of kissing Ren that had kept him company on his many lonely nights. He moved his hand to the bottom of the chainmail vest. “Don’t be difficult. Just for a moment. I’m sure we can both get our clothes off in record time.”

Hux wasn’t wearing underthings, and it was an easy enough task to slide off the full-body tunic he was wearing, even with one arm. He left Ren’s delicate silver hairnet on his own head. Ren took longer, and Hux helped him how he could, yanking the ridiculous chainmail over his head, pulling at Ren’s skirt rather than snaking his hand up his thigh as he wanted. He unbuckled Ren's belt one-handed, and the lightsaber dropped to the floor.

When they were both appropriately naked, Hux noticed just how chill the cell was. He glanced over his shoulder, at the still-open barred entrance.

“Must we do this in such a public place? Won’t your guards hear?”

“I don’t care.” Ren’s hands were moving up Hux’s thighs, his thumbs rubbing the insides, then up his waist.

Hux realized he didn’t either, and he pushed Ren backwards into the mattress, his one hand sinking into the solidness of Ren’s chest. He clenched his jaw, realizing he hadn’t gotten Ren naked since that diminished version of him, which seemed so long ago. He bent down, burying his face in the center of Ren’s chest.

“Your tits, Ren. I missed them.” Ren arched his back to push against Hux’s face, and Hux slid his arm underneath him, pulling himself close and leaving his face against Ren’s chest.

“Can’t you say something else? My muscles? My chest?”

 _It’s all of you_ , Hux thought, smirking into Ren’s chest before rolling his face to a nipple, sucking on it. It had been and always would be a weakness of Ren’s, and Hux tilted his head up so he could see Ren’s eyes fall shut, his mouth open in shock as the small gasp escaped. He took the nippe between his teeth, squeezing gently before lapping briefly with his tongue and leaning forward, pulling himself up.

“It’s all of you,” he said aloud, quietly, just next to Ren’s ear, before kissing him in the spot just behind and below it, feeling Ren, one of the most powerful beings in the galaxy, shudder below him.

Hux closed his eyes and pressed their foreheads together, overwhelmed himself in a way he hadn’t been before. But still, it wasn’t right. He pushed himself up, peering at Ren.

“Can’t you give me all of it?” he asked, hating how pathetic he sounded. But he was here, and he was going to be honest.

“All of it? All of what?” Confusion flashed briefly across his face before his expression went neutral again. “Is there something I’m supposed to do?”

“It’s…” Hux grimaced, lowering his forehead again, willing the thing to pass between them unspoken.

It was the place in his thoughts where Ren went. He wanted to feel what Ren felt, he wanted it to feed into this and crave more, ever more. Ren was still absent, despite being right in front of him, solid and warm, _here_ , finally. Part of Hux knew it was ego, but he also reveled in the idea that there wasn’t anyone who knew each other like he and Ren did.

Ren sighed, pulling back slightly. “I’m not going to do that right now.”

“I…” Hux closed his mouth, and couldn’t hide the hurt. He clamped his jaw closed and looked down. Ren’s hand came up, touching below his chin.

“Can’t we do this first?”

“You want me to have sex with you, but you can’t share your thoughts, lest I run off back to whichever master programmed my memories, perfectly attuned to your tastes.”

“Yeah. I mean… Eventually I’ll show you. Probably.” His eyes shifted away, then back. “But for now, it’s just the one way.”

“Until you trust me.”

“Yes.”

Hux scowled, looking down. “I’m sure a blowjob is a trust-building exercise.”

Ren had certainly picked up on Hux’s bitterness, his feeling of rejection, but he still smirked. “It is.”

Hux tightened the corners of his mouth, wanted to be more angry than he was, but his blood was singing, and Ren was underneath his hand, real and here. He sat back on Ren’s thighs, lining up their cocks and taking them into his hand.

“This first,” he said, feeling his face heat.

Ren stared at him for a moment, rolling his head to the side and closing his eyes. “You like this. It’s the first thing we did together.”

“Thank you for narrating my desires. It makes everything that much more appealing, much less like I’m fucking a stranger.”

Ren cracked one eye. “You would never fuck a stranger. You wouldn’t touch anyone but me.”

Hux felt his throat tighten, and he closed his eyes, still picturing Ren, one eye cracked, the pupil blown, his black hair fanning out around his face. He began rocking his hips, wishing he had his other hand again to feel Ren’s abdomen tremble below him, to steady himself.

Ren was more muscular this time, which Hux hardly believed possible. More muscular, more solid, just _larger_  in general. He had fewer scars, and they were in different places - a light slash across his shoulder, a nick on the line of his jaw.

Well. Hux had his own scars, and was missing an arm. What of it?

“Ren,” he breathed, allowing himself to sink into the pleasure of the act as he hadn’t in years, though it was harder without Ren’s lust accompanying his own. “This. I wanted this. I wanted this since I lost it.”

“I’ve always wanted it,” Ren murmured below him. “Hux, _Hux_ -”

And Ren came, because of course he did, of course it only took a two minute handjob. Hux growled in frustration as Ren curled himself up nearly defensively, grunting low, his face red, eyes clenched shut.

Unexpectedly, whatever control he had for blocking his thoughts slipped in the moment, and Hux was blindsided by Ren’s arousal, his orgasm, and an alarming amount of possessiveness, hurt, confusion, wariness. Love. Hux felt it, saw it for what it was. This stranger, this Kylo Ren, still loved him, absurdly, and apparently unconditionally.

He was also blindsided by a wave of cold, a bone-deep freeze that threatened to lock every muscle in his body and pushed the air from his lungs.  He forced himself to inhale ad exhale, and went through the mental exercises he'd learned over the years to push it back. He'd never been blindsided by this particularly charming sign of Ren's power imbalance while on the edge of an orgasm before, and as he blocked it from his mind, he began to warm up again, relieved to find that he was still hard, still very much aroused by the sight of Ren underneath him.

Hux leaned forward, pressing his cock between their stomachs, knowing he wasn’t going to last long. He debated what to do next.

“I can-” Ren began, his voice coming out weak, the languidness of his post-orgasmic thoughts still seeping clearly into Hux’s consciousness, twined with threads of cold so intense that it threatened to give Hux a headache. “I can suck your dick, if you want.”

Hux let out a noise that was something like a laugh and also something else, because Ren had never learned to suck a cock, and he could too easily picture him gagging on it now.

He came, just from the pressure of his dick pressed between their stomachs slicked with Ren's come, because that was just too much. It was too much Ren.

He laid on top of Ren then, their thoughts intertwining comfortably, Ren’s languidness leveling out into something like exhaustion and sleep. He seemed to be attempting a sort of mental barrier, and between that and Hux's own defenses against it, learned through many cold nights, it was manageable.

Hux put the cold out of his head completely, and huffed, amused by how tired Ren was.

“What have you done to exhaust yourself?”

Ren laughed, a hand going to Hux’s bare scalp, his fingers winding through the silver netting of the veil Hux had taken from him. “I wake up early to plan a defense against my enemies every morning.”

Hux closed his eyes, some of his good feeling abating. He didn’t want to know if Ren was joking or not, couldn’t tell by the comfortable exhaustion he was radiating.

“No. I do.”

“Of course you do. What else would you do locked up in your kingdom?”

“Are you always like this?”

“Always,” Hux assured him. He shifted, annoyed by the position. “If we have to sleep together in a tiny prison bed with a thin sheet, won’t you at least move to the pillow?”

Ren grunted, rolling over and shifting until he’d moved his head to the pillow. Hux shifted along with him, pulling the sheet over them.

He stayed on top of Ren, far too comfortable and sated to move. His fingers drifted through Ren’s hair, reveling in it, that he was here in a bed with Ren again, that they were together, that he had succeeded.

He felt Ren’s thoughts go hazy, his contentment and exhaustion overtaking him. His breathing slowed, and Hux shifted slightly, leaving his lips along the pulse point of his neck. He felt Ren's heart beat, steady and warm, beneath his mouth. He counted each heartbeat as a second, even as his pulse slowed with sleep.

He waited for thirty minutes. An hour. He was patient. His hand crept under the pillow, into the case wrapped around it, grabbing the dose of painkiller and sleep aid. One insta-dose containing both, to be taken before sleeping.

He fisted the cylinder and depressed the end, driving the dose into Ren’s shoulder. After sex, Ren was a sound sleeper, and Hux had always complained that a direct attack on the _Finalizer_  wouldn’t have woken him. Conversely, Ren complained that Hux never slept soundly a day in his life.

He hadn’t, not since losing Ren. He’d been sleeping badly for years, and was thoroughly exhausted. He wanted nothing more than to slip into sleep next to Ren.

But he couldn't. Ren needed the sleep aid more than he did. Ren twitched beneath him, his brows drawing together, but he did not wake. Hux waited another ten minutes before he peeled their chests apart, his skin burning where he was stuck to Ren with dried and gummy come.

He thinned his lips, looking down into Ren’s sleeping face, continuing to drag his fingers through Ren’s hair.

 

 

  
_”Why do you like my hair so much?” Ren asked, a year after moving onto the_ Finalizer _. Ren had just returned from a session with Snoke, and they had exhausted themselves with blistering sex, the kind that Hux craved as soon as Ren stepped foot on his shuttle to leave._

_Hux was pushing his fingers through Ren's hair in the darkness, and he paused, turning his head slightly, unable to see Ren in the room._

_“What kind of question is that, Ren? Why do you think I like your hair?”_

_“I. I know why.”_

_“Of course you do. You can read my mind when we have sex, can’t you?” Hux pulled his hand out and rolled over, putting his back to Ren. He hated discussing what was between them, felt like Ren had an unfair advantage. He always felt_ weak _in moments like these._

_“It’s just. Your hair is. Better. I don’t know why you would like mine when yours is-”_

Beautiful _, Ren pushed into his head. The compliment was silly, and did nothing to improve Hux’s mood._

_“Why do you even ask? You know what I think of your hair. Fuck, why do we even talk? What’s the point. Just read my mind instead.”_

_“It’s not. It’s not_ _like that, it’s not like I always read your thoughts. And I can’t help it when we’re… like this. I can’t. They’re just there, along with mine.”_

_Hux knew what he meant. Ren’s emotions were always stronger when they had sex, and Hux was able to receive snippets of Ren’s thoughts too, though he suspected he got less than Ren did. But he was suddenly in a bad mood, hating that Ren had asked such an invasive question._

_“Don’t you read my thoughts constantly?”_

_“No! Would you want to read my thoughts all the time?”_

Yes _, Hux thought immediately, and Ren huffed a breath of laughter. Hux felt the edges of his amusement and fondness curling through his mind, felt Ren’s breath on the back of his neck where he’d pulled close and exhaled._

_“That’s true. You would. You like knowing everything.”_

_Ren was in a better mood than he normally was after returning from Snoke. Clearer, somehow. Hux rolled back over to face him in the darkness. It was true that Hux would read everyone’s mind all the time if he could._

_“I can’t really do that,” Ren insisted, more annoyed. “You know that. I can’t even read your specific thoughts all the time.”_

You can read mine easily, even when we aren’t having sex.  You've gotten better at it _, Hux thought distinctly._ And I would read yours all the time, if I could. To know you.

_It was unusually bold, and Ren withered, embarrassment curling around the edges of his thoughts._

_“You’re not a very good person, Hux. Not even to me. I know better than to read your thoughts when we aren’t having sex, because you’re always thinking something unflattering about me.”_

_Hux balked at the_ unflattering _part of the remark._

_“I’d say any of it out loud.”_

_Ren huffed again, his amusement reluctant and tinged with annoyance this time._

_“I don’t think many people would admit that.”_

_“I keep plenty of opinions to myself,” Hux snapped. Ren was missing the point of this, of course._

_“No, I know,” Ren, somehow, was thinking that Hux misunderstood. “I know you… don’t. To anyone else.”_

_“I don’t fuck them, you mean,” Hux clarified, and he felt Ren’s annoyance drift more solidly into anger. Satisfied, Hux rolled back over, putting his back to Ren._

_“If you ever want to do me the kindness of masking how fed up you are with my temper, or how stupid you think I am for solving everything with fighting,” Ren bit out, “Think something good about me instead.”_

_Hux snorted, and this time he was the one whose annoyed fondness twined through their thoughts, despite himself. “If I feel like insulting you, compliment you instead. Got it.”_

_He felt Ren roll over too, putting his back to Hux. Hux hated when they did this, when they had such stupid arguments. He wouldn’t have bothered with anyone else. But Ren brought out the pettiness in him. It was just how it was when they were together._

_“Don’t act like it doesn’t benefit you to trick me,” Ren said bitterly. “I know when you think you’re manipulating me.”_

_“It’s not very good manipulation if I’m telling you I’m doing it.”_

_“No, it’s not.”_

_After a few minutes of silence, where both sulked and grew no closer to sleep, Hux was too curious to resist._

Compliment you? Think about your hair, you mean _?_

_“That works,” Ren mumbled. “If you’re thinking something actually nice about me, I get-”_

_Ren stopped, and Hux felt his embarrassment washing through him in waves. He smirked. He knew._

I’ve always liked your hair. It was one of the things I wanted to do first when I met you. Run my fingers through it, to see if it was a thick as it looked.

_Part of Hux was annoyed when Ren rolled back over, clutching Hux to his chest, burying his face in his neck._

_He reached a hand back and scratched him fondly at the back of his head, his fingers winding through his hair._

 

He did it again now, his fingers winding through Ren’s hair.

This Ren. Life had failed him. Hux had failed him too, by not coming for him when he should have. He was aimless, paranoid, had trapped himself far worse than anyone else had done for him. The frigid grip of his unbalanced power was... not a good sign. Especially since Snoke wasn't the cause of it. Ren had to be doing that to himself.

Hux would not stay here with Kylo Ren, who would not trust him, and did not want a life they chose together.

He had considered his possible courses of action as he’d waited by himself in his cell for Ren. His worst fears had been confirmed by Ren’s paranoia and refusal to hear Hux out. He’d wanted to speak to Ren before making a decision, wanted to see how long Ren waited to speak to him in the cell, what Ren’s goals were, why Ren was here.

He’d wondered how much this version of Ren could read his thoughts. Plenty, and also not enough, apparently. He’d remembered what Ren had told him so long ago, and filled his thoughts with compliments, with the things he’d fantasized about for the entirety of his search. Ren was so weak for praise, and Ren was right. Hux couldn’t help how he felt about him.

Hux leaned forward, naked, and pressed their foreheads together one last time.

After everything that had happened, leaving Ren in this prison cell was, by far, one of the hardest things he’d ever done.

He left Ren’s silver veil on his head and dressed himself in Ren’s clothes, which were too large, of course. But the chainmail was some sort of status symbol, and it would lend authenticity to the lie Hux had invented to escape while he waited in his cell. He’d told himself it was just a thought exercise, that he’d never leave Ren.

He watched himself, detached, as he told the guards in power armor that he was on the High Priest’s business. He thought of Ren’s expression as he’d given him a simple handjob, and the intensity of Ren’s love for him, as he made his way along the transport system and back to the docking bay, to his empty transport. And it was Ren’s hair, the feeling of it between the fingers of his left hand, that haunted him as he set the autopilot and left, numb.

He thought of Phasma as he broke the atmosphere. He wondered what they’d done with her. Perhaps she would be initiated. Perhaps she’d be the one that usurped Ren. He hoped not. No part of him would ever wish any version of Ren dead.

The numbness gave way to absolute despair. He couldn’t bear the thought of staying trapped on Starkiller, with that grim, awful culture and all his bad memories about what he’d done and what had happened to both himself and Ren there. That couldn’t be the rest of his life, not even with that parody of Ren, who exhibited himself and performed a strange kind of blasphemy.

He let the transport drift aimlessly, not having the heart for what came next, but he realized he needed to be well away from Starkiller before Ren awoke. His hands paused over the navcomputer. He held it there, and watched as, mechanically, the coordinates for the jump to Ventu were programmed in.

He was only a day’s travel away. He didn’t sleep, and just fingered the silver and jeweled veil draped over his scalp, over and over again. The yellow stones would ill-suit him, would be lost in his hair once it grew back. They looked so fetching on Ren, speckled through his dark curls.

The jeweled veil wasn’t the same as the focusing crystal that was rightfully his, but it was close. He closed his eyes and imagined the feeling of Ren’s emotions in his thoughts again as he willed the day to pass quicker.

It didn’t of course. Time had lost its meaning for him, and so he sat, feeling the texture of Ren’s hair between his fingers. Eventually, cruelly, he also felt the sensation on his right side, his vanished hand on Ren’s absent head, though this version of his body had never felt it.

That was too much. All of this, everything about this version of reality, had been too much. Hux simply wanted to wake up and pretend none of it had happened. He put his left hand to his face, covering it as he loathed himself and let the tears squeeze from his eyes. Twice in one day, after such a reaction had been beaten out of him so long ago.

When he got to Ventu, he went straight to the cave, which still reeked of honeysuckle blossom. He barely registered anything else - whether it was day or night, whether the aliens had come out to greet him, whether any of them had tried to stop him. He had no idea. He seemed to come back to himself only after the wall of sickly sweet smell and dark humidity hit him.

He sat on the stairs and really considered what it was he wanted.

This version of Ren had been wrong. He couldn’t. He couldn’t have Ren when Ren didn’t trust him. But. In a sense, this version of Kylo Ren needed Hux more than any of the others, and Hux was doing the one thing that he promised he never would.

By leaving him, Hux was betraying him. Ren would never forgive him, even if he turned around and returned right now. In some ways, Hux would never forgive himself, no matter what happened. He couldn’t stay, but he was still leaving a painful part of himself behind. Maybe, whatever happened to these versions of himself he left behind, he would go back and accept his punishment from Ren. If he couldn’t leave, he supposed, he would have to do that. He couldn’t do anything else, knowing where Ren was now.

He felt the tears running down his face, and it was ridiculous. This wasn’t him. Nothing about this version of reality had been him, nor had it been Ren, really.

Perhaps the version of himself that stayed behind wouldn’t weep. Perhaps that version would fly back to Ren and apologize, and offer himself. He would help Ren. Prove that Ren could trust him, even though he’d fled. He’d help Ren balance his power, get rid of that awful chill, and together they would leave.

Probably not, though. Hux was patient. But he still hoped, somehow, that his Kylo Ren was in a different version of a Ventu reality, if only he wished it sincerely enough in this cave.

“I just.” He began, feeling silly for saying it aloud. But fuck it. This whole business was bizarre, and he had no idea what he would do if he woke up at the bottom of this cave and finally saw whatever was causing all this. Would he go back to Ren? Could he, after such a betrayal?

He opened his mouth, and closed it again. For years, he'd told himself stories about what would happen when he found Ren. How it would be different this time, how he would make amends for everything he'd done.

And yet. Here he was, begging for a reset. Throwing Ren away, instead of... _cherishing_ him, or whatever he'd been imagining.

 _Our lives are bound_. And they would be bound to Starkiller here for the rest of their lives.

“I want Kylo Ren. I want my Kylo Ren. I want… a life. One we both. Where we are useful.”

 _Our lives are bound._  But they hadn’t been, this time. There had been sharp dissonance, and Hux told himself it was wrong. This wasn’t what was meant for either of them.

Still, it hurt. It hurt in a way he didn’t know he could be hurt.

Not even aloud, by himself, pleading for his life, could he say what he wanted aloud. This was difficult. He’d realized that he didn’t necessarily need the Order. He’d left it easily enough this time, in its disgraced form.

But his Order. And his Kylo Ren. He wanted them both. He wanted his old life back. And as much as he wanted to admit he didn’t need the Order-

“It’s not more important to me,” He said aloud, again, to confirm to himself. To prove he was sincere. “I’d rather have Ren. But. I can’t. Think of what we’d do, if not that.”

“I want us to be together. And I want us to be _good_.”

He stood, and went down the stairs to the bottom of the cave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Hux gives Ren a dose of sleeping medication and painkiller after he falls asleep, which is not something Ren is aware of.  
> \- Ren executes a couple people with a lightsaber in a fairly canon-typical way, with nothing described graphically.  
> \- Ren is a bit of a shyster, who is using his powers to act as a religious head and judge. This includes faith healing he can't do.  
> \- Along with that, there is a man whose implants are rejected, and he is suffering from an infection that is implied to be fatal. Again, not super-graphic.  
> \- The primary religion on the planet is some sort of machine god (the _Deus Mechanicus_ which is from Warhammer 40k), and the populous voluntarily undergoes cybernetic body modifications in tribute.  
>  \- Hux believes he is imprisoned by Ren at one point. He's actually not, Ren is just Like That.  
> \- Hux leaves Ren at the end of the chapter, which is a little more emotionally traumatic here than it has been previously. Skip to the next chapter if that isn't your jam.


	17. Part Four: Lanval - Chapter 1

Once again, Hux remembered everything when he woke. The sick Kylo Ren. The Senator. The High Priest. The smell of the cave didn’t follow him into consciousness this time, but he knew well enough what had happened.

With his eyes open, he noticed immediately that he wasn’t in his bed on the _Finalizer_ , or any other vessel he’d known. There was an enormous window taking up one wall, thin gray curtains drawn across it that let artificial light filter through from what must have been a large city on some unknown planet. The hum of a starship didn’t shake him, didn’t ring through his ears. Instead, there was silence, stillness.

Slow breathing next to him.

Hux was lying on his right side, facing a large room that was difficult to make out in the low light. Slowly, carefully, he shifted onto his back. Immediately, he felt a sensation in his right arm, the tingling numbness of having laid on it too long. He brought it out from under the sheet, staring at it in the darkness. It was whole, intact, everything about it just as he remembered. He flexed his fingers, reveling in the sensation of being whole again. It had been _years_.

But. He rolled onto his left side. Even waking with his arm back paled in comparison to waking up to Ren in his bed. _Their_  bed. And it was definitely Ren, lying on his back, sleeping with his mouth open. Ren’s nose, Ren’s eyelashes, Ren’s dark hair spread over the pillow. Even in the faint gray light, Hux could see that all of it was… Ren.

“Ren,” he whispered, pushing down the impulse to feel foolish. He grabbed Ren’s shoulder with his right hand - honed muscle below a layer of soft flesh, the shoulder he remembered - and shook him. It was a shock and a pleasure to be able to feel anything with that hand, but most especially Ren. It seemed right that Ren would be the first thing he touched with his recovered hand.

“Ren.”

He wasn’t easy to wake. And when he did come abruptly from sleep, it was usually with a tenseness of muscle and a split-second where it seemed that Ren would attack him before realizing who Hux was. It was as if Ren was always waking from a nightmare, or expected to be assaulted when he opened his eyes. Ren had never reacted well to being woken up, and Hux avoided it when he could. 

But Hux couldn’t help himself now, and Ren had no such reaction this time. Instead, he put a hand to his face, groaning and pushing his hair away.

“Nnn. Hux.”

Hux propped himself above him, taking him in as best he could in the low light. Ren was barechested, had a thin sheet pulled up to his waist. Ren’s chest, his arms, his hair, his skin - all of it was Ren’s, all of it immediately familiar. Ren lacked every scar that Hux could think to find - an old wound on his left shoulder, light scarring on his abdomen, a cut across his left bicep, the scar from Starkiller that bisected his face and ran down his shoulder and chest. He ran a finger along the nonexistent line of that scar, Ren’s eyes cracking open to watch him, his brows drawing together.

“What’s wrong?”

Rather than answering, Hux tucked his hair behind his ear, pushed his own out of his face, and leaned down to kiss him, laying himself atop Ren’s chest.

Ren’s lips didn’t move immediately, but when they did, Hux felt Ren’s hands around his waist, his mouth opening for Hux’s tongue, and the sensation of Ren’s thoughts, muted and confused from sleep but still there, twining through his own.

Hux moaned into Ren’s mouth with relief, and Ren responded by tightening his grip on Hux, pulling Hux more fully on top of him, his own tongue exploring Hux’s mouth, Hux’s tags pulling at his neck, a dark shape pressed between them in the darkness. Ren tasted of stale morning breath, and Hux couldn’t stop himself from making another noise at the familiarity of it. Ren’s teeth came around his lower lip, nipping and sucking, and Hux adjusted his head, slipping his tongue into Ren’s mouth again, wanting more of this, of all of him.

Hux felt on the sharp edge of a breakdown, a kind of tense hysteria building behind the waves of immense relief that kept crashing through his thoughts. _He’d done it. This was him. This was right._

He could feel Ren’s growing concern as the thoughts twined with Hux’s grew from sleepy confusion to a sharper kind of watchfulness. But before Ren could say anything, Hux bit gently at his lower lip and pulled back, staring into the dark depths of Ren’s eyes. There was silence between them as each explored the other’s thoughts, their feelings.

Ren was growing increasingly worried by whatever he saw in Hux’s head, and Hux didn’t want him to ruin the moment.

“Fuck me,” Hux stated simply, pulling back further, straddling Ren’s hips and pushing his fingers through his dark hair, relishing the soft, smooth texture of it. Ren stared up at him, the light reflecting in his eyes, his expression mostly lost to the darkness in the room, though his concern was clear enough in his thoughts. Hux tucked his fingers below Ren’s chin and rubbed his thumb along the roughness of the stubble of Ren’s facial hair.  He pressed gently, tipping Ren's face up and over to see more of him in the light.  Hux made out his drawn brows, the worry etched into his features.

“I was _asleep_ , what are-”

“Fuck me,” Hux repeated, shaking his head, rubbing a thumb along Ren’s lower lip. He wanted to touch Ren's face, wanted to touch him all over. His other hand moved along the line of Ren’s throat, tracing his shoulder, the thick muscle at the base of his neck, the hollow between his collarbones. Ren’s skin was warm, humid, his pulse increasing under Hux’s fingers.

 _I need it,_  he tried in his head, and Ren frowned.

“Did you have… a nightmare?”

Hux didn’t dream, and they both knew it. This wasn’t an entirely confident question, but Hux could sense - _sense_ , because Ren was in his head again, after so long - that Ren couldn’t put words to the way Hux was acting. Neither could Hux, so he kissed Ren again, leaning his full weight onto his broad chest. He adjusted his legs, entwining them together as he traced Ren’s thighs with his knees, ran his toes along his calves and shins, pushed their hips together in an obvious show of intention. They were both naked, Hux noted. That made things easier.

Ren’s kiss was less sleepy now, still confused, but what Ren lacked in ardor Hux made up for himself. Ren’s full lips parted, and Hux tasted him again, finding Ren’s tongue, pressing their mouths together, then pulling back, gentling, licking slightly, Ren’s breath against his own lips. He wanted to touch Ren everywhere, but he was having trouble getting further than his face, tracing his rough cheeks, the edges of his nose, his eyebrows, over and over again, in disbelief that Ren was real. Hux didn’t dream, but this certainly felt like one after all this time.

“Let me?” Hux asked, thinking of sucking on Ren’s cock, knowing that he didn’t have to ask it aloud.

Ren’s hands came up to Hux’s shoulders, pushing him back so he could look into Hux’s face. Hux pushed his hair out of his face again, annoyed, impatient.

“It’s just…” Ren began, worry filling his features.

 _not like you_ , he finished in Hux’s head.

“I know.”

_I need it. Let me. Then we’ll go back to sleep._

“Okay,” Ren replied, voice low, and Hux could feel the vibration of it through Ren’s chest, the permission ringing through their shared thoughts. So Hux slid down, taking the sheet with him.  They had both gone to bed naked, Ren and whatever version of himself existed here.  He was thankful for it, too impatient to worry about sliding out of briefs.

Ren didn’t have an erection, and despite the kissing, neither did Hux. But the act of engulfing the enormity of Ren's soft cock in his mouth, feeling the fullness of it between his lips and against his tongue, roused Hux quickly. He amused himself by making obscene slurping sounds, letting his mouth fill with saliva and drooling into Ren’s neatly kept pubic hair. Was the trimming Ren’s choice, or Hux’s? Hux had always insisted on it before. It didn’t matter now. He sucked Ren to the root, nesting his nose in the neat hair and inhaling the scent of Ren’s sweat, still the same.

Ren was growing hard now, so Hux sucked, pulling on the more elastic length with his lips, sucking up to the head and tonguing at the slit, tasting the first salty drops of precome. There was very little of it. He and Ren obviously did this often.

All of it was the same, and so familiar. This was _his_  Ren. This Ren wasn’t going to orgasm with just some rudimentary teasing. This Ren wouldn’t leak enough precome to slick Hux’s hand and make a mess. This was the Ren that had been with Hux for years, could let Hux suck his cock until Hux’s throat ached and his lips were stretched and sore. This Ren would stroke himself with his big hand as Hux stretched himself, too impatient to have Ren do it.

Ren’s cock thickened, and Hux was encouraged, gripping the base between his fingers and running his tongue from root to tip. It was still too soft to stand fully erect, as big as it was, and he wrapped his lips around it and sucked again. He could feel the heat of it against his tongue, and when it was hard enough to swallow, he took it all the way to the back of his throat. He moaned against it, knowing that Ren loved it.

It earned him an appreciative groan from Ren, and the familiar hand came to the back of his head, clenching his hair. Tight enough to hurt, but never trying to control Hux in this.

Hux pushed his own erection against the bedsheets, not willing to touch himself just yet, wanting to taste more of Ren. But too soon, his cock was throbbing and he needed more than the friction against the bed. He pulled himself off Ren’s cock and gripped it in a fist, looking up, feeling heat on his cheeks. He stared into Ren's eyes and pictured Ren fucking him, vividly, pictured the perfect stretch of it and how that would feel, and Ren using his big hand just right on Hux's cock as he kissed the pulse point of his neck. He knew Ren saw it, saw it clearly and wanted it, too.

“I can’t wait,” he admitted. “Will you jerk yourself while I get ready?”

“ _Hux_.” Ren groaned, pushing a hand against his face and clenching his eyes shut before surging forward, pulling Hux in closer and kissing him, tasting himself in Hux’s mouth and making a low noise as he kissed more frantically, his teeth finding more of Hux’s lips and abusing them, biting and sucking.

Hux pulled back, slightly breathless, leaving his eyes closed. Ren was panting against his mouth, not speaking, but pushing a clear thought into Hux's head.

_Why? It’s never-_

“I know,” Hux said aloud. He opened his eyes, seeing Ren, and there was nothing there that Hux didn’t recognize. None of the distance, the confusion, the calculation, the desperate loss and loneliness that had been on his face again and again. There was only astonishment, and complete and utter focus on Hux.

Hux wrapped his own fingers in Ren’s hair and leaned forward to kiss him again, unable to stop himself. Hux couldn't remember the last time they'd kissed so much. He could feel Ren’s presence surging around him, the pressure of him in the Force and the headiness of his arousal twining with Hux’s.

“I love you,” Hux admitted, more sure this time as he sat up and opened his eyes. After so many years, saying it aloud didn’t feel as monumental as it should have. Just a statement of fact.

When Ren only stared at him, Hux let his brows draw together.

“I love you. I always have.” It came out normal. Smooth. He felt calm. Every fear, humiliation, all the stress he’d suffered, all of it had led up to this. And now that he had said it, here, as himself, to this Ren, he felt the world settle back into place.

“Hand me the lube,” he added, holding his palm out when Ren still had no response, verbal or otherwise.

Ren gestured, and a small, soft bottle of lube slapped into Hux’s outstretched palm. Hux grinned.

“I missed you.”

Ren shook his head, and Hux felt his thoughts edging from affection to a growing concern. “Hux, what do you mean, you missed me-”

“Shut up,” he said instead, lying back on the mattress between Ren’s spread legs, facing him as Ren pulled himself against the headboard. Hux put himself on display, making a show of spreading his thighs, parting his knees and pulling them up, resting the soles of his feet against Ren’s thighs. He squeezed lube onto his fingers and parted his ass, probing his entrance with his index finger and watching Ren.

“I’m telling the truth. And I want this to be fast, Ren.”

 _I want you inside me_ , he added, just in case Ren had somehow missed his meaning.

He hadn’t.

Hux watched as Ren stroked himself slowly, his expression mostly hidden in the darkness of the room, the artificial light from outside illuminating the shape of him, the wild tangle of his hair after Hux had his hands through it. Hux closed his eyes and felt his cock leaking onto his stomach, groaned as he pushed another finger inside himself. Fast, it was too fast, and he was tight, but there wasn’t much pain. Perhaps they did this more frequently than he remembered.

Ren repositioned himself, kneeling in front of Hux, stroking himself slowly, his head bent low in the darkness. As Hux pushed a third finger in, Ren grabbed his wrist with one hand and a thigh thigh with the other, pushing Hux’s legs further apart. Hux frowned at the chill clamminess of Ren’s palm against his thigh. It was spit-slick from where he’d been stroking himself.

“Use the lubricant, you animal.”

“Let me,” Ren said, unperturbed, as he pulled on Hux’s wrist and removed his fingers, the bottle of lube showily smacking into his palm a moment later. Hux closed his eyes and groaned, exasperated and so pleased to have Ren back.

Ren leaned over him, his hair falling forward to frame his face.  Quickly, he slipped three of his slick, calloused fingers inside Hux. It felt so familiar, so _good_ , that Hux nearly wept again.

Ren. It was Ren, and they were together again. None of the rest mattered any more. It had made the having of this better. He thought of the other Rens, the ill Ren, the Senator, the Ren he’d so recently betrayed.

And then a tear did slip from the corner of his eye, because even now, with Ren inside him and over him and filling his thoughts, he felt bitterly ashamed of his betrayal only a day ago. The way he’d deceived Ren and fled, knowing that he’d leave Ren behind thinking he’d be back, and needing him so badly. It was awful.

“No, you didn’t… you didn’t do any of that. You didn’t leave me. It was just… a dream.” Ren’s voice inflected up slightly, obviously confused by what he’d seen of Hux’s thoughts. Hux pulled him down, feeling Ren’s breath against his forehead, heat in the places where they were pressed together. Hux’s hands on Ren’s face, a palm on Hux’s thigh, Ren’s knees pressed in close to push Hux up.

“Go faster, Ren. Harder. I want you to make me forget… that.” His voice was unsteady, and his breath was coming quick. It had been so long since he’d lost himself in Ren like this. Their sex had been passionless for a long time, something to make them both forget when Ren came back from Snoke, or simply because one or the other felt a quick urge to release.

It wasn’t this. It wasn’t something Hux needed so urgently. Ren hadn’t needed Hux like this either. They were uniquely connected, and their connection fed the intensity. Perhaps it had been Hux's indifference that had held them back. They were bound, and could only do this together.

Ren made a low noise in his throat, and Hux felt his Force pressing in harder, his thoughts wrapping tightly in his own, lust and anguish and affection mixed together.

“Hux, why-”

“Now, Ren. Fuck me. I’m not feeling particularly chatty.”

Ren bent down, taking Hux’s earlobe gently in his teeth as he lined himself up and pushed in on a single thrust, moaning messily into Hux’s ear.

The pressure of it knocked Hux’s breath away. It was exactly what he’d wanted, in this moment and for three years before this. Like this, he’d forget the rest of it, erase the years and the bad things and the regrets.

“ _Harder_. Fuck me, Ren.”

Ren pulled out and pushed back in obligingly. Hux could sense that he was annoyed by the orders, but still concerned by all of this. Hux offered no explanation. He wrapped his arms around Ren’s neck and pulled himself onto Ren’s cock when Ren wasn’t fucking him deep enough.

Ren responded by pushing one palm into Hux’s chest, pushing him back down and snapping his hips hard enough to make Hux gasp. Hux closed his eyes, saw sparks in his vision, and Ren let out a low sound of contentment and did it again, the pain and pleasure mixing perfectly. Ren repeated it, again and again. Hux lost himself to it, coming undone completely when Ren’s hand moved from his chest to his cock, stroking until Hux came, quickly, far too soon. Ren put his mouth over Hux’s to swallow the breath and uncharacteristically loud noises he was making as he let himself unwind, letting this erase every bad thing that had happened since he'd missed Ren in his bed that first time.

Hux was never like this. Never loud, never losing control of his own body. But surrendering to Ren felt good, and was exactly how he wanted everything he’d done to end. He should have let himself have this long ago.

As he let himself relax further, closing his eyes and catching his breath, he began lazily pulling at Ren’s emotions to pick out his lust, his admiration, his worry for Hux. Ren was completely focused on him, too, and it felt good to wrap himself in it. A comfort. One of the only ones he’d known, and something he would never take for granted again.

Caught up in their mental connection, he hardly noticed when Ren pulled out, still hard, and only vaguely registered the wet slap of skin against skin until he felt the hot splash of Ren’s come over his chest. His eyes shot open in shock for a moment, and he stared at Ren’s tight expression, resigning himself to it, moaning and scowling, one hand going over his face.

“Ren, that’s _disgusting_.”

Ren gave a short grunt, and one more splash of come hit Hux’s belly. When Hux pulled his hand away from his eyes and down over his mouth, Ren’s expression had gone meditative. There was a string of come connecting his cock to the mess on Hux’s body, direct evidence of his crime.

Hux stared accusingly until the color went down in Ren’s face and he opened his eyes, a more innocent expression on his face.

“Did you think it was going to be all about you?”

The authentically petty revenge of coming all over Hux made him grin under his hand, and he felt the mattress shift as Ren slid over and stood, his steps quiet as he left the room. Hux, content, turned and watched his bare ass disappear through the open doorway, saw a light flicking on elsewhere in the suite, the quiet sound of water running.

It was all so familiar. The chill of the room was prickling his skin uncomfortably, but he was already falling back asleep facing the wrong way in the bed when Ren came back and wiped him down. Ren was gentle as he cleaned every bit of his chest, stomach, and thighs. The warmth and coarseness of the cloth was a comfort. Hux  _hmmed_  in contentment, not bothering to open his eyes or pull his hand from over his eyes.

He felt Ren kiss the inside of his thigh as he finished wiping, then heard the sound of the wet cloth hitting the floor. Ren climbed back into bed, gently pulling Hux back around and gathering the thin sheet around them, holding Hux close. Hux pushed his face into Ren’s neck, luxuriated under the weight of Ren’s arm across his chest, his leg tangled in his own, and the warmth of their bed in the chill of the suite.

“Is that it?” Ren asked quietly. Hux didn’t respond aloud, but instead wrapped his hands around the arm stretched across his chest.

 _Yes_ , he thought, too tired to speak and drifting into a deep, satisfied sleep. _That’s it exactly._

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
When he awoke the next morning, it was to an empty bed and bright light flooding through the window. The air was still and cold, and his senses reminded him again that he was not on a ship. He pulled the thin sheet up over his chest, glancing over to Ren’s side of the bed.

For a moment, he remembered everything - all the other times he had woken up without Ren, and how much worse it would be this time if he were planetside, having some sort of vision of Ren, only to wake up without him in a strange place. It wasn’t even a starship.

He forced himself to evaluate the situation logically before panic could overwhelm him. He flexed the fingers of his right hand to assure himself that he had indeed woken up in a different life, pushing back the memory of betraying Ren only the day before.  That wasn't real anymore, and Ren himself promised that it hadn't happened.

_Ren? Or a vision of Ren?_

Ren was real. And he would have left behind signs that he had been here. Hux searched for them, even while a voice inside his head told him he had imagined it all, that these loops were driving him mad, and this was the last sign of it.

There was nothing to fear, because the evidence was clear enough.  The sheets were pulled back on Ren's side of the bed, and the mattress was depressed in the shape of a body.  Two of Ren's dark hairs were on his crushed pillow. The bed smelled like sex. Hux wrinkled his nose as he forced himself calm again, running a hand over his stomach and glancing over at the cloth still on the floor, then flexing slightly to feel the ache in his ass where Ren had been.

Ren had been here, and existed in this place with Hux. That was… an immense relief. Hux let out a shuddering breath, pushing the last of the panic from his thoughts. Assessing what he’d do without Ren once again... Hux wasn't sure he could bring himself to find Ren again.  But he didn't have to. He only had to figure out where they were.

He swung his feet down to the floor, keeping the sheet draped across his lap as he assessed his surroundings. The walls were blank and white, the floor _carpeted_ , of all things, in some sort of plush gray material that was soft but firm below Hux’s feet. The bed had an abstract design twisted into the gray metal of the headboard, lines and spirals gathering into a circle that was off-center. Two broad-leafed plants stood on either side of the enormous window, a filmy gray curtain doing nothing to block the light of day streaming through. The room was simple and clean, the same way they kept the Commander suite on the _Finalizer_.

But it was the touches of personality that Hux found it hard to look at now. Ren’s filthy set of extra boots, tossed carelessly into a corner. A dent near the door where Ren had obviously lost his temper. A set of weights were heaped near the window, making the room feel more like a gym than a place of rest, though if Hux were honest with himself, it smelled more of sex than sweat. All of it made Hux's chest ache. He pushed his fingers through his messy hair. It was definitely their room, though not one that Hux had ever seen before.

He closed his eyes. So he lived here with Ren. Planetside. Where?

“Ren?” he called out, opening one eye to peer through the open doorway into the rest of the well-lit suite. A feeling of rejection sat sourly in the pit of his stomach, but it was easy enough to dismiss - Ren didn’t have to wait in their bed for him to wake up, it just wasn’t something they did for one another. He shouldn’t be upset now simply because he _did_  want Ren here.

He had a sudden memory of the last version of Ren accusing him of never giving up his sense of betrayal about Ben Solo choosing his family over Hux when they first met. That was…

Different. It was different than this. Ren was in the ‘fresher. He hadn’t left Hux alone. He hadn’t even left Hux back then. The other Ren made it sound like Hux lived in fear of Ren leaving him.

He took a deep breath, willing himself to calm down. He did hold that against Ren, and it wasn’t fair. Every part of Hux knew that Ren would never reject him, never leave him.

Still.

“Ren!” he shouted, louder this time, as he stood and walked, naked, into the rest of the suite.

He stopped in the doorway, dropping the hand he’d been holding against one eye and taking in the sight, dumbfounded.

The plush gray carpeting continued into an enormous main room, where there were a few tasteful paintings on the walls, mostly of scenery, none were places that Hux recognized. There was a sunken pit that contained a large ice-blue sofa similar to the one in their rooms on the _Finalizer_ , facing one of the largest holosets Hux had ever seen. Through a large doorway that opened with a touch of Hux's hand against a security panel, he found a formal dining set in an elaborate entertainment suite meant for guests (still carpeted, Hux noted, his lip raising), along with a bar that was as large as any Hux had seen during his sporadic, non-existent planetside leaves.  The room was done in crimson and gray, with tapestries and paintings and more gilt and carved wood than either Hux or Ren would have chosen or cared for. Set off and locked as it was, Hux thought this must be the more public area of the suite. There was a receiving room off the entertainment suite decorated similarly, fitted with chairs and couches, another large holoset, small speakers mounted along the tops of the walls, and one large section of floor that was paneled in dark wood, rather than carpet. Through a small open doorway, Hux spotted a restroom, a sink and toilet visible. One wall was taken up almost completely with a large main entrance, an elaborate door made of wood banded with durasteel riveted through the designs. There was an electronic lock panel alongside it that was more elaborate than anything they’d had on the _Finalizer_.

Hux ventured back into the main area of the suite, which was more private and to their own personal tastes. Hoping to find more evidence of why the two of them were here, and also Ren, Hux gave a cursory glance through a clean kitchen area in the main room, separated from the open area by a bar with two stools pulled up to it. The cabinets and refrigeration unit contained basics, easy-to-eat meals and simple premade fare. Neither of them had ever been much for preparing their own food. Ren had attempted it, but Hux had never really developed a taste for or interest in more elaborate fare, once it had been made available to him. Ren had eventually given up. 

Closer to the bedroom, there was a closed doorway that likely led into a 'fresher. Another closed, unsecured doorway was near the locked one leading to the public area. Hux left them for now, preoccupied by the absence of Ren.

“Ren,” he repeated, his voice growing louder, panic rising again as he let himself into the ‘fresher. The room was dark, humid, and smelled of a recent shower, though he didn’t recognize the scent of the products they usually used. The lights brightened when he entered, showing two sinks in a heavy gray-and-white counter, an enormous mirror that stretched floor to ceiling along one wall, a small closet, a rose-colored stone tub that was level with the tiled floor and large enough for ten people, and a ‘fresher large enough for four, with a feed for water on either side. Hux had never seen accommodations this excessive before. The suite did appear to be lived in by the two of them, but this private 'fresher was difficult to justify. Did they really live like this?

Was it theirs? Was Ren here? Panic clawed at him again, and he ignored it. Ren had obviously used the room just this morning, and Hux should do the same. He brought the lights up to full brightness, and went about his routine as usual. 

He couldn’t find the air function in the ‘fresher, so he allowed himself the use of water instead. His thoughts raced, and he reminded himself over and over that the previous night had been real, that Ren had clearly been in the bed with him, had used this ‘fresher earlier. The stall was still wet. Ren was here. Ren wouldn’t leave him. Ren loved him.

He grasped at his ID tags for further reassurance, felt the chain pull around his neck. But the tags themselves didn’t feel right in his palm. He fumbled at them for a moment before stepping out of the water and looking down. The tags were missing. Only Ren’s focusing crystal was around his neck, in its familiar setting.

His stomach plummeted. The tags would identify him if he died. They’d needed them so often in the past, sometimes the only way to identify a body that had-

He held his breath, then let it out, closing his eyes. Not right now. He had Ren’s crystal, and Ren was here. The tags were… less important. They didn’t see the same types of traumatic deaths that necessitated the tags anymore. And Ren would be able to identify him, anyway, if he had the crystal.

The focusing crystal was more important. He squeezed it, then let it fall back against his chest, allowing himself to be comforted by it.

The ‘fresher was excessively decadent, which Hux should have predicted after seeing the rest of the suite. The products were labeled in High Galactic. Annoying, but he found the differences between them easily enough. When he exited the ‘fresher, he studied himself in the enormous mirror, fogged with humidity but rapidly clearing as the environmental controls dried out the air.

He looked much the same as he always did. Less tired, perhaps. His skin wasn’t as pale, and bore more freckles. He had more lines around his eyes and mouth, and perhaps looked just a bit older. Maybe heavier, too. There was a nasty scar around his right bicep. He looked down, surprised, touching the raised flesh with the fingertips of his left hand. It was right where his arm had been removed in the last life.

He met his own eyes in the mirror, reminding himself that he’d found exactly what he wanted. It helped, and he decided to finish his morning routine, groping around the unfamiliar room until he found the shaving tech. He used the large mirror again, disconcerted by having to stare at the entirety of his naked body as he removed the thin fuzz of hair from his face. None of the ‘fresher storage seemed to contain his hair product or a comb, and he cursed, making his way back into the bedroom.

After a moment, he found a concealed panel next to the bed that opened at his touch to reveal a large walk-in closet that lit as Hux entered. He stopped, puzzled.

One side contained the kind of things that Ren liked. Long, flowing black tunics, tight pants. Black robes, some slimmer cut for formal occasions. There wasn’t a single color aside from black.

The other side… was more confusing. It was done in charcoal gray and navy blue, an occasional burgundy or white garment mixed in with the rest. The clothing was more formally cut, and included tunics, jackets, and pants, both full-length and a shorter length that could be tucked into knee-high boots. There were several pairs of shined boots positioned carefully underneath the garments, black and soft brown, and even one pair in white. All of them were heeled.

Hux grabbed a gray tunic off a hangar, holding it up to himself. It was certainly his size, and was tailored in a way that Hux preferred for his uniforms.

But they weren’t uniforms. Where were Hux’s uniforms?

Troubled by this, he decided to ask Ren as soon as… he came back from wherever he was. He glanced back to the door panel and saw a soft black robe hanging near the door, cut similarly to the one he'd had on the _Finalizer_. He put that on instead of the unfamiliar clothes. The temperature of the rooms had risen since he'd woken up, and the robe was warm enough to wear around the suite for the time being.

He looked around, standing in the middle of the clean, sterile bedroom, restless and unable to pin the feeling down. It wasn’t just that he was in an unfamiliar place, and it wasn’t just that Ren was gone. There was a stillness, and a feeling of _wrongness_. It was being planetside, yes, which was always too quiet for Hux-

It hit him. The ringing in his head was gone. He blinked, running a hand through his hair. He searched his thoughts. No sign of Ren’s presence, not really, but it felt… like it did when Ren was away. Not like it did when he was _gone_ , just out. The distinction was very clear after years of the empty ringing in his thoughts.

 

  
  
_Hux was seated at the small desk in his private office when the wave of anger washed over him, so powerful that he closed his eyes and exhaled to separate it from his own thoughts. He glanced at the door, then back to his datapad. He projected his own annoyance at the intrusive anger, blanking the screen and standing, knowing there would be no more work completed that evening. Hux himself was frazzled, near the end of his endurance. The last several days had been a nightmare. A conflict on Kethlat was going miserably, and they didn’t have enough resources nearby to ensure a victory. This was a situation that Ren could solve planetside, but Ren had been unavailable, of course. Training with Snoke. Thus, Hux had sunk more Troopers, Officers, and equipment into the conflict than it was worth, and he was currently re-working the sector's budget for the next several months, re-alloting Troopers and defense resources and every fucking other thing they had._

 _Ren’s interruption was_ unwelcome _, to say the least._

_He entered the private suite, removing his uniform and powering everything down, feigning sleep by the time Ren appeared later. Ren’s arrival took longer than Hux anticipated, and as he’d waited, he’d sensed Ren’s fury dialing down to fatigue, confusion, a bone-deep weariness, and eventually hurt. Physical as well as mental._

_Eventually, he heard the outer door to the suite open, followed closely by the muted sound of Ren’s boots stomping across the main room, then the door to the bedroom powering open._

_“Hux,” he stated flatly, still wearing the kriffing helmet, not bothering to turn any lights on. He had once claimed that the Dark Side allowed him to sense anything without the need for natural light. Hux had witnessed Ren’s powers himself on the lawn of the Republic Senate, but Hux suspected the tale of his infallible vision was a lie in the artificial environment of a ship. He knew for a fact there were infrared and other visual spectrum detectors in the visor of Ren’s helmet._

_Hux didn't respond to Ren's entrance. He felt the mattress dip, Ren’s knee at the edge. Hux’s side of the bed was opposite the main door, Ren would have to climb completely into the bed to study Hux’s face. And he knew better than to do it in his tunic and boots._

_“Hux. You’re not asleep.”_

_Hux rolled over, glaring into the darkness, unable to see Ren or his helmet. “No. And I’m sure you intend to keep it that way.”_

_Ren was silent a moment, and his anger and weariness grew suddenly muted as he began masking his thoughts. Hux had only the barest hint of his confusion, his continued weariness, the hurt._

_“I’ve been gone for a week.”_

_“We sleep together. I am aware.”_

_“You didn’t…” Hux sensed a more acute hurt, something else swallowed back that was strong enough to make it through Ren’s barriers. “You didn’t come to see me in the hangar.”_

_“What? No. I didn’t.”_

_There was an awkward silence. Hux hadn’t met Ren at the hangar in a long time. There was no way Ren had expected it today, and to accuse Hux of an oversight was ridiculous. They were both too busy for this._

_“I don’t sit on the ship and pine when you’re gone, Ren. And your invasion of my mind continues to be enough of an unwanted reminder when you do return.”_

_He could feel a sharp spike of hurt from Ren at that. Hux exhaled, frustrated._

_“Turn on the lights if we’re going to do this. Must you stalk around the bedroom in the dark, wearing your helmet and-” Hux wrinkled his nose. “I know you can use your powers to sense me, or whatever it is you do, but I can only_ smell _you. It’s disgusting. Can you not clean up before you climb into our bed?”_

_Ren rocked back off the mattress during the tirade, and Hux had no sense of him in the room aside from his muted thoughts. It was frustrating. Hux wanted to see him._

_“Lights, twenty percent.”_

_He squinted in the low light, finding Ren as expected - robes stiff with dirt and sweat, his battered helmet covering his face, every inch of flesh hidden from view. He stood awkward and hunched over, shoulders stooped, looming over the empty half of the bed and looking defeated._

_Hux counted off twelve seconds of Ren standing silent, looking as if Hux had beaten him, before he grew fed up with Ren's sullenness._ _“Spit it out, Ren. What is it you want? I can’t read your thoughts when you’re like this.”_

_“You just complained about being able to read my thoughts.”_

_Hux glanced away, bunching the sheet in his lap, recognizing that his anger was irrational, but unable to change it. “Take off the helmet.”_

_Ren did, looking more furious than his posture indicated. But his skin was very pale, and his eyes had dark circles under them._

_“What do you want?” Hux asked, resigned, wanting to get this over with._

_Ren scowled. “I want to be clean.”_

_Hux knew what he meant, what he actually wanted. He wanted them to be together, had probably been fantasizing about washing with Hux the entire time he was away. Still, Hux waved vaguely at the door to the ‘fresher, not willing to indulge him. “Through there.”_

_Ren stared at him a moment longer before stomping out of the room. Hux watched him go, then ordered the lights to zero percent, lying back down and rolling over to face the wall. A few minutes later, he heard the sonic start up in the next room._

_He hadn’t intended to fall asleep, had fully planned on listing his grievances to Ren once he was finished in the ‘fresher. But he hadn’t been sleeping well, never really did when Ren was away, and he found himself starting awake as Ren crawled back into their bed, smelling of soap and his own sweat, which never really washed away._

_Ren put an arm around Hux’s chest and began kissing behind his ear. Hux squirmed. He wanted to fall back asleep, and didn’t mind if this was all Ren wanted, to hold Hux close and kiss him softly. But he could sense Ren’s hope that it would go farther. But it couldn't._ _Hux had foregone the brief 'fresher cycle he used before bed in order to appear asleep by the time Ren reached their rooms. He was exhausted, and he felt filthy._

_“Don’t,” he mumbled, rolling onto his back and cracking an eye. Ren’s nose pressed into his cheek, and his half-hard cock pressed into his hip. Hux closed his eye again, annoyed by the attention, but accepting that Ren wouldn't give him peace until he was satisfied._

_“I’m dirty. But you can fuck me if you want.”_

_Ren paused. “Why didn’t you take a shower with me?”_

_Hux let out an annoyed grunt. “I was already in bed.”_

_Ren went still. He kept an arm around Hux's chest, but after a moment he shifted, his face moving lower to mouth at Hux's neck. He said nothing else, but Hux felt the intrusive thoughts pressing at his own consciousness - Ren’s hurt, his_ want _._

_“Then fuck me,” he muttered weakly, keeping his eyes closed. He was used to this by now. Ren always wanted sex after he returned from training. They fucked so rarely, otherwise. Hux had stopped initiating it himself a long time ago, always so tired by the time he returned to his rooms. His shifts were getting longer and longer, his off days vanishing along with his leisure time. Ren still wanted it, though, and Hux was usually amiable enough._

_Ren's response was spoken into Hux's thoughts, rather than aloud._ I’m tired too. Can’t you fuck me this time?

_“I’m nearly asleep,” Hux snapped, louder this time, feeling the peace and quiet he'd craved slipping further away. “You do it, if that’s what you want.”_

_Ren was furious, attracted,_ hurt _._

_“Fine,” Hux said crossly, reaching for Ren’s half-hard dick. “I’ll give you a handjob.”_

_“Hux.”_

_“I’m not fucking you, Ren.”_

_“Why_ not _?”_

 _Hux sat up and buried his face in his hands, his own anger making his head throb, along with that wretched_ hurt _from Ren, which was far stronger than it had any right to be. He dropped his hands and looked down at Ren, furious at him. He just wanted to_ sleep _._

 _“Since when is it my job to fix it, Ren? Do you really expect to crawl into my bed in the middle of the night and demand that I fuck you? Because you just got back from Snoke and_ feel bad _? By that logic, should I expect a blowjob when I return to the suite after a stressful day?”_

_Ren’s touch had disappeared, and Hux could barely make him out in the darkness, aside from where the low light was catching in his dark eyes. He couldn’t feel anything from Ren other than the hurt, which meant that he was masking the rest of his thoughts, but the hurt was too powerful to hide from Hux._

_He swore under his breath, pulling the sheet back up and rolling onto his side, away from Ren._

 

 

Oh yes, Hux always knew when Ren was away. Ren was away now, but not gone.

He squeezed his eyes shut at the memory. It hadn’t been the first or last time he’d been cruel to Ren. And it would have cost him nothing to offer comfort when Ren returned from Snoke. Perhaps not fuck him on demand, but Hux could have… maybe done something different. Held his temper. Held Ren. It would have been enough.

He remembered what Senator Ren had said about his training with Snoke, and regretted the memory even more. Ren had been through so much. Hux didn't know if Snoke had been involved with the last version of the Order, and he had no idea if he was the Supreme Leader now. But Ren would never attend another training session with him. They would both make sure of it.

They had been so rarely intimate as work on Starkiller progressed. Not even Ren had had the energy after he returned from missions or Snoke. Even when one or the other wanted sex, it usually turned into an argument about who got to lie back while the other did the work. Neither would relent once a fight started, and they often fell asleep angry, their backs to each other. When they did have sex, it was because Ren was willing to put in the effort to fuck Hux, and it had always been enjoyable. That had been enough for Hux. But Ren had been increasingly tired, angry, and distant as Hux lost himself in his work and Ren in training. They had been little more than bedmates for nearly two years before Ventu. And as Starkiller grew more complete and they both had duties elsewhere, they had shared a bed less and less. Hux had rarely slept at all, and almost never with Ren. He never slept well without him, anyway.

Well. He’d woken with Ren in his bed this time. He could do everything differently. They would spend more time together, and Hux wouldn’t take Ren for granted.

It was already proving very difficult to be away from him, which was ridiculous. He needed to speak to his staff, determine what their current missions and objectives were. He needed to find his office, whether it was on the surface of this planet or the _Finalizer_ , which was probably nearby. The _Finalizer_ was more appealing - the familiarity would be a much-needed comfort, and he would have uniforms there.

Still, he lingered in the strange space that he shared with Ren. He walked across the main room, to a wall made of transparisteel that was covered with sections of filmy gray curtains. He pulled back the nearest curtain, noticing controls for a door cleverly concealed in a section of the wall. There was an enormous balcony visible through the transparisteel, screened with trellises of green plants. Vines crawled along the flat black wood sections and criss-crossed delicately through the railings that enclosed the entire space.

He opened the door and walked out, unselfconscious in his robe and loose hair, and was assaulted with the smell and sounds of a huge urban area. The roar of speeder traffic hummed through the air, and a high wind smelling of dust and exhaust blew into his face. He glanced to the horizon, then down, then further down - the balcony was well above ground level, and towered over most of the structures nearby.  A taller group of buildings was visible in the distance, and there were several nearby structures that glinted in the light and stood well above most of the rest, but Hux's balcony was taller still, even taller than most of the traffic lanes.

There was also the green smell of the flowering vines, and the floral smell of honeysuckle, because of course that was growing in their private suite, the pink and white blossoms a miniature version of the giant blooms on Ventu. It was humid and sunny, but the balcony was shaded. There were several spindly tables and chairs lined up, and even a small refrigeration unit. Hux sneered at it and turned his gaze back to the landscape.

The urban area was massive, with lines of speeder traffic and various structures stretching as far as he could see. The scale of it, the number of buildings and vehicles, and the mass of living beings they must contain, was staggering. Hux hadn’t seen anything like this, not since Coruscant, and this metropolis was much more alive than Coruscant had been. There were people in the speeders, crawling around between the buildings on the ground. Further away, he could see walkways stretching between taller buildings that hung above an urban area kilometers away. There was a large green area, and a domed building -

The New Republic Senate building, and the park around it. He was in Republic City. Again. In the fucking Scion Corridor, in the largest and tallest and most garish building on the planet, the one that Ren the Senator and Ren’s mother had lived in, the one that had made Hux sick with its wealth the first time he’d seen it. His skin crawled, and he looked over the railing to verify, immediately spotting the distinctive green marble the building was clad in. He realized he must be near the top, if not on the very top floor.

He cursed and stepped quickly back inside, the door sealing him back into an uncanny stillness that lacked the blowing wind and the cloying scent of flowers.

What was he doing in the Scion Corridor? In the top suite of the Republic's most lavish building, living with Ren? Their clothes were in the closet. Or, at least, Ren’s were. It looked very much like they had been staying here. Were they… negotiating with someone? Had the First Order somehow come here?

He walked across the room, tapping wall controls to scour the rest of the suite for clues. One door concealed a stairway that went down one level to another large private area. There was an exercise suite full of things that Ren used to work out, including shattered practice droids. It was exactly like their accommodations on the _Finalizer,_ including the most annoying details - Ren had an entire room full of equipment, so why did he keep weights in their bedroom? They were there now, ubiquitous and infuriating. But Hux had resolved to moderate his behavior, and decided not to ask about it.

There was even an enormous, decadent pool in a room by itself, and a smaller round pool set in the floor nearby that Hux knew was a hot tub. He had a personal hot tub in the Order, a therapeutic model that had been inside Ren’s commandeered exercise suite. Hux had felt guilty about using every time. This one was much nicer.

How did the building support a _pool_? A hot tub? In a private room?

It must not be a private room, Hux decided. He must have civilian clothes for some reason, and even Ren’s clothes weren’t quite right. They must be negotiating. It must be… a gift, a temporary residence.

He continued tapping control panels. He found another bedroom, empty and containing twin beds. He relaxed when he saw it. He and Ren would have no need of such accommodations, so this was certainly not their private residence. There was also another expansive bathing suite in the lower level, between the exercise area and the second bedroom. It matched the first, with its wall-to-wall mirror, sunken tub, and dual-headed extra large 'fresher. He exhaled. He knew they would never have _two_  of such a thing, in addition to the restroom in the public area. It must be some kind of hotel.

That opinion changed quickly when he let himself into another room, nearly as expansive as the main suite on the floor above. He inhaled when he saw it.

It was an enormous office in the corner of the suite. Two walls were taken up by uncurtained floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a stunning view of Republic City, the downtown area and the Senate building. One wall had an enormous holoset mounted on it, with smaller ones grouped around it. There was a set of plush ice-blue furniture arranged in the center of the room, and another area with a high black table ringed with stools. There were datapads set into the surface of the table that would suit a meeting of ten people.

It was _his_  office, indisputably, because his father’s enormous desk was in the other corner. The elaborately carved Bith monstrosity, the one that had been too much his father’s to keep after his death. He’d regretted incinerating it. It was an heirloom from the Empire, the Commandant’s desk from the Imperial Academy. Here it was, in this room that could only belong to Hux.

He was still barefoot, and he nearly stumbled in the thick plush carpet, dropping himself heavily into the seat behind the desk like a droid on a programmed course. He tapped one of the familiar hidden compartments. Inside was a stack of fiber paper and three archaic dip pens, with three bottles of ink in different colors. He looked through the loose paperwork. One of the sheets had writing, High Galactic in green ink. He replaced it and closed the drawer.

He tapped the controls mounted in the top of the desk. They hadn’t been there before, but he’d fantasized about adding them while his father had been alive, a logical update that he thought the desk badly needed. Just as he’d expected, the top had been retrofitted to accommodate a holoset. He placed his hand on the panel, and High Galactic hovered over the desktop for a moment before a pinging sound rang out. A green message in High Galactic flashed above the desk, followed by several more in red.

Hux stared at them. He had never learned to read High Galactic, it was Republican nonsense. He hadn’t needed to, because all decent services paired it with Aurebesh. With the controls set to High Galactic, he wouldn’t be able to switch the writing system.

“Aurebesh,” he tried aloud, to see if the system responded to voice controls. A message flashed in black. Hux couldn’t read it.

“Recite aloud,” he tried again. Nothing happened.

He tapped his palm on the desk, curious, and found that the gesture cleared the holoscreen, as expected. He left his hand on the desktop, feeling it heat up against the hard plastic of the sensors, then slowly pulled it across, his slightly sweaty palm squealing and smearing the display.

He leaned back in the (soft, too soft) chair, crossing his arms.

“Do you respond to any other voice commands?”

When there was only silence, he cursed again, looking around the room. There were no hints of his life here, no sign of where Ren had gone or what he was currently working on. With the interface in High Galactic, he couldn’t use the system until Ren came back. Ren would be smug about making the change for him. Perhaps this had been some prank of Ren's, revenge for waking him up in the middle of the night. Petty and annoying, but not totally out of character.

His eyes scanned the desktop, looking for any clues that weren’t in High Galactic. There were three styluses, carbon-fired durasteel. One had his name in High Galactic etched into the side, which was as much High Galactic as he could read.

There was another sensor control in the far corner of the desk. Curious, he tapped it, and watched as a holoimage formed above it, blessedly free of text. It appeared to be a holo of himself and Ren, both young enough to be in their early teens. They hadn't met when they'd been that young, of course. They were together, wearing identical tan uniforms piped in red and white. Ren looked surly, Hux smug.

Hux stared at it. He did not recognize the uniform, had no memory of this moment, which had been commemorated with a holo that he’d installed on his desk.

As he watched, the display switched automatically to a holo of Hux wearing a medal, holding a holoprojected text in High Galactic. There was a building in the background that appeared similar to the architecture he’d seen on Chandrila, low and white and sturdy-looking, similar to the New Republic Senate building. Ren had his arm around him, still looking surly. Hux looked more grim. They were both still wearing the same uniforms. This holo looked to be only a year or two older than the first.

The holodisplay switched again, and Ren was in robes, black with red and white piping, a variation of the uniform they had been wearing. He had his lightsaber, the proper saber, the red one with the crossguard, and had the scars on his hands to prove his mastery of it. He was using one of his old Jedi stances.

The holo switched again to a grim-looking Ren, older now, looking the same age as when they had met and wearing a tight-fitting black formal tunic that flowed down past his hips, showing off highly polished knee-high boots that Hux appreciated immensely, even in the strange setting. They showed off Ren's calves wonderfully. Ren was standing with both of his grim-looking parents. Leia in particular was not happy. Both parents were dressed in expensive-looking tailored outfits, which Hux wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Han Solo wear. Leia Organa was wearing a white formal robe, her hair done in an elaborate twist, Han Solo in a style of suit unique to Corellia. The holo was painfully posed and formal.

The image changed again, to Hux in his mid-twenties, wearing the same painfully formal attire, a tunic with a wide belt that was almost identical to Ren’s, but shorter, cinched tighter to show off his narrow waist, which Hux always hated. It wasn’t quite his uniform, and his rank was missing. The medal from the other holo was pinned to the right side of his chest. Leia Organa was standing next to him. Neither of them appeared to be happy about it. The corner of Hux’s mouth turned up when he noticed the careful gap between them. It was obviously the same day as the holo with Ren, as Organa was dressed and coiffed identically.

Another holo cycled up, this one of Ren and Hux together. They were wearing matching gray tunics, unfashionably long, with ridiculous thin belts. Hux’s severe hairstyle was gone, and his hair was hanging loose and light around his face. Ren was leaning into him, looking happy, his arm around Hux's waist. Hux’s hand was over his. Neither wore gloves. Hux also looked happy.

That holo stayed up the longest, and Hux stared at it. He had no memory of any of these things, though that wasn’t unusual lately. But it was hard to reconcile his life and Ren’s with the two men in the holo. They had never looked that happy. Hux was suddenly jealous of this version of himself, not just for all the memories he so badly wanted, but that he had holos _at all_ , and a situation where… they were simply installed on his desk. On his _father's_  desk, in this ridiculous New Republic suite, where he could tap a panel and look at this holo whenever he wanted.

Hux slammed his palm into the holopad again, dismissing the images.

Hux had only two holos of himself and Ren. One was from their first meeting, the one that Ben had tricked away from that plant-person. It was the two of them kissing, both red-faced, Hux in Ben’s lap in that silly half-uniform, his hat in Ben’s hand. It was adolescent, public, and embarrassing. The New Republic Senate building was in the background. That alone would get him executed, if the wrong person in the First Order ever found it.

But it was still their first meeting, and it was… something like that last holo. Hux rested his forehead on the desk, suddenly aching at the realization that the holo no longer existed. He hadn’t looked at it often, not nearly as often as he should have. It was buried in his most private files so no enemies could ever access it. But he’d pulled it up, sometimes. Mostly when he and Ren hadn’t been on good terms. He’d thought if it since his ordeals began, and had missed it, wishing he’d looked at it more often.

The other holo was the two of them together, taken around five years ago. It was a still from a speech he'd given, Ren behind him in full mask and costume, his lightsaber needlessly active. Hux had been annoyed by the saber at the time, as it had been a subtle threat aimed at him. Hux was giving a motivational speech to three legions of Stormtroopers that were about to be deployed with Ren. Ren had claimed they were going to a Resistance stronghold, stationed further into the interior of the Outer Rim than they generally patrolled. The intel and reconnaissance hadn’t supported Ren’s insistence that the base existed, and Hux thought the mission would be a colossal waste. They had fought. Ren had insisted, and Ren had won. So Hux had given the speech, his best effort at explaining why they needed to eradicate the Resistance and their pathetic attempts to expose the Order. With the help of the Troopers, under Ren's guidance, the Resistance wouldn't be a threat for much longer.

Because he hadn’t wanted to send the Troopers, his speech had been controlled rather than fanatical, and he looked confident giving it. Ren had stood behind him, lightsaber out, ostensibly to show the Troopers the visible threat to the Resistance, though more likely to drive the point home to Hux.

They had looked good together. Powerful. It was an image that spoke to both their roles. Hux as the architect, and Ren as the power.

That holo likely didn’t exist anymore, either. Right now, he had only this stranger’s happy memories with Ren, who may also be a stranger when he came back and the two of them actually had a conversation.

He reached a hand out to the main console again, rolling his neck and considering, wanting very badly to comm Ren. His Ren wouldn’t have answered, back in their own version of the First Order. Maybe this Ren, who was happier, would.

He decided against it. What would he say, sitting behind his father’s desk, wearing nothing but a robe, feeling like a stranger in his own skin? Perhaps this Ren would know him for an impostor immediately. He had never made Ren look so happy. He wasn’t sure he could.

He tapped the screen for the private holos again, wanting to see their happiness, the two men who would get a formal holo taken. The image appeared, hovering over the desktop for another two minutes. Hux stared at it, his head pillowed on his arm now, trying to work through the conversation he would have when Ren returned. Hopefully Ren would come back soon. Hux had no idea.

The holo switched again, and he sat up, startled. He was around twelve again, in the same uniform, wearing that stupid medal.

An aging Mon Mothma was next to him, grinning, pinching the medal between two fingers where it was pinned to Hux’s chest, showing it off to the holorecorder. The other arm was over Hux’s shoulders. She was shorter than him even then, and had leaned in, head against his shoulder. He had a neutral expression on his face, but didn’t look uncomfortable. One arm was around Mon Mothma’s waist.

That was disturbing enough that Hux shut off the holos again. He stood and left the room, the plush carpeting doing its best to consume his bare feet.

He went back up the short stairway and stood in the center of the main room, with its enormous window that led to the private balcony with live honeysuckle plants growing on it. He could dress and leave. But where would he go? He had no holopad to direct him around the city, and if Ren were to return, Hux would be gone. He didn’t care to travel around Republic City more than he already had. It was full of wretched memories, none of them real anymore.

Unthinkingly, he went back down the stairs into Ren’s workout suite, his bare feet pricking against the various droid pieces littering the floor. He ignored it, going straight to a soft padded column near the corner of the room. There were several of these, most of them with tears in the fabric and scorch marks from where Ren’s temper had got the better of him. One of them had been cut short.

Hux punched it bare-fisted. Then, he punched it again, this time with the other fist. His hands ached. He hadn’t done this type of physical training since he’d been a cadet in the general program. But it was easier to remember his childhood training routines than the holo of himself with Mon Mothma in his desk, alongside holos of he and Ren looking happy.

He punched the padding again, letting the pain drive the rest of it from his mind. He quickly warmed to the task, letting muscle memory take over as he alternated punches against the padding, his fists throbbing. He stopped after his hands went numb, gasping, staring forward and forcing his fists open at his sides.

He continued the general physical routine from his childhood, never forgotten, the countless repetitions making the motions easy even after so many years had passed. He slipped out of his robe to do it naked. First, the cadet calisthenics, the ones he’d learned at the Arkanis Academy, before the Empire had fallen. The push-ups, the jumping, the kicking. He did the routines over and over again, until his skin was slicked with sweat.

Concentrating on his body was easy. He didn’t have to think as he did it. He didn't have to remember the times Ren had come for him and Hux had pushed him away, or when Ren had pushed him away. And he didn't have to think about this version of himself, who was happy.

Eventually, he worked himself until his thighs quivered and he could barely stand, breath coming quick and painful now. He grabbed the robe, his hands still sore and stiff from the unaccustomed abuse, and mechanically went to the ‘fresher - the second ‘fresher, the one he hadn’t used this morning - using the hot water once again, letting it run over his face and hair and relax his tired muscles. He stretched tentatively, the 'fresher large enough to do the old cool-down routine in.

The routine, satisfying and mind-numbing as it was, still didn’t help him. He still had no clue what to do with his day. As nice as the thought was, it was hard to imagine the _Finalizer_ stationed anywhere in the Hosnian System, so he dismissed his earlier eagerness to find a transport. He could dress, but he didn’t have any of his own uniforms. The robe was the most familiar item, the most like something he owned, so he put it back on and returned to the enormous balcony that overlooked Republic City.

He didn’t know how much time had passed inside the suite, but the sky had darkened, overcast and possibly sunset. He hadn’t been planetside long enough, and in enough places, to identify the edge of a day and night cycle. He sat at one of the spindly, ornamental chairs that looked to thin to support Ren’s bulk and watched as the clouds gathered and the wind picked up, whipping his wet hair around his face. The heat and humidity became oppressive, the sweet smell of the flowers pressing in as he let his gaze drift, taking in the speeders, wondering how many people were on each.

Eventually, it rained. In distant patches at first, the heavy far-off patterns of it looking like smudges under the clouds. Then, it raced across the landscape and reached Hux. It was heavy. Thunder cracked, and he sat, indifferent, as the wind blew the water in his face and his robe became sodden. The cloud cover lowered until his view of the city was obscured, but the rain and wind still blew in, warm on his skin.

He’d been planetside so rarely that rain was still irrevocably linked to his early childhood on Arkanis. He’d hated it, as it had always been raining during the outdoor drills. The wretched mud had been deep, and had stained his pristine uniforms. He’d hated getting messy, even as a child. He smirked now, thinking of all the holos he’d viewed of cadets struggling through muddy training exercises. He knew the feeling well.

But he couldn't hold the smug thought for long. The cadets who participated in planetside training exercises were much older now. At least twice the age Hux had been at the Imperial Academy, and older for the more difficult exercises. Hux had changed that as soon as he’d had a say in it, when they'd been in a place to resume planetside training exercises. It took three tries to find a behavioral specialist that supported the idea that it was too stressful for the very young cadets. Drilling little more than toddlers planetside was traumatic for the recruit and a waste of resources for the Order.

The two specialists that had opposed him had been old Imperials. Hux had pushed the changes through, and he’d remembered the two Imperials later, when he was able to do something about them. They had also been a waste of resources for the Order.

Eventually, the weather reached a threshold that activated a protection barrier on the balcony. The drops began to sizzle against the energy field, and no longer pelted his face. But the barrier didn’t keep out the temperature or humidity, and the hot stickiness pressed against his wet skin.

 

 

 

_It started to rain as Hux and Ren wound their way around the outskirts of the town. They had finished their business, and Ren had talked him into spending another hot, cloudy day planetside. So Hux had consented to wearing an uncomfortable brown poncho and a local garment that wrapped around his head to cover everything but his eyes. The material was a rough weave that was uncomfortable in the heat and irritating against his skin. Ren was dressed similarly, but of course he had found the same outfit in black._

_Ren had led him into the depressing, trackless fields that encircled the small town. He could not tell if the yellow native grass in the fields was cultivated or wild, but it was tall and overwhelming, reaching Hux's shoulder. It smelled musty, and had a sharp, firm texture with little give that tore at the fabric of their ponchos as they pushed through. There was an eerie sound echoing through the fields as the firm edges of the blades sawed together in the slightest breath of air. It was low but maddening, and he and Ren had spoken little on the walk as a result._

_As they walked, the temperature plummeted and the wind picked up, and Hux's mood stabilized as he loosened his face wrap to allow the cool air against his skin. But before long, he felt the first drops of rain fall from the heavy clouds and splatter against his cheeks. He scowled, glancing over to Ren, who was walking with his shoulders hunched and arms crossed over his chest. His expression was masked by his head wrap, and his emotions were muted and hazy._

_“Great,” Hux muttered, pulling the cloth higher over his face, not sure if Ren heard. He didn't respond, so Hux kept the rest of his foul thoughts silent. He hated rain. Truthfully, he'd had enough of it to last a lifetime._

_It didn't take long for the rainfall to grow heavier. Water pelted his poncho and wrap. He was drenched in minutes, wincing at the hated feeling of the mud sucking at his boots, gathering at the hem of his poncho and spattering messily everywhere._

_He could feel the pressure of Ren’s Force powers in his mind increasing without revealing more of Ren’s emotions. It was a sure sign that Ren was bored and digging deeper into Hux's thoughts. The cold water ran down Hux’s neck, and he willed Ren to stay silent about whatever he was pilfering from Hux’s memories._

_“You’re used to it,” Ren observed, and Hux cursed his lack of tact. “The rain, I mean.”_

_“How could I be used to it? I grew up on Star Destroyers. We hardly simulate planetary weather patterns there.”_

_“You were used to rain when you were young.”_

_He glanced sharply over at Ren. His face was wet, his head wrapping completely saturated and sagging down his face, revealing the wet shine of his cheeks and a few of the moles that dotted his pale skin. His mouth was still covered, but Hux could see his thoughts well enough in his eyes. He was staring straight ahead, his brows drawn, pointedly not looking at Hux._

_“I was never used to the rain. Helping yourself to my memories again?”_

_“You never share them with me.”_

_“I don’t.”_

_There was silence, and he could feel Ren waiting, as if Hux would offer more. If Ren thought he was going to relive his earliest memories drilling in the mud on Arkanis, he was mistaken._

_“You know everything about me,” Ren tried, his tone growing more petulant._

_“You aren’t that difficult to know.”_

_Ren turned and gave him an incredulous look. Hux continued. “Your childhood is well-documented.”_

_“I could look yours up too, if I wanted.”_

_Hux shrugged, the heavy fabric pulling at his shoulders. “Then do it.”_

_“Can’t you just tell me?” Ren raised his voice, clearly growing upset over… whatever this was. Hux stopped, tired suddenly, the rain pounding down around them. His field of vision grew narrower as his head wrap became saturated and heavy, the weight dragging the fabric down his face and over his eyes. Hux wrapped it tighter, not wanting to feel the raindrops against his skin, and he watched Ren continue ahead, stomping heavily through the mud, splashing it over the yellow grass._

_“My memories are tedious. Depressing. Not worth knowing.” Which was all true. Hux didn't want to talk about it, and wished he could forget most of it. It was annoying baggage to drag through his life, and sharing it with Ren didn't change that. The sooner they moved on, the better._

_Ren stopped, squaring his shoulders before he turned back to face Hux. His head wrap had fallen down around his neck, revealing his expression. He glowered at Hux._

_“You’re right.” He took several steps closer, until the two of them were nearly toe to toe. The wind blew, and Hux felt the heavy drops spatter against him as_   _Ren leaned close. “There’s something wrong with your memories from Arkanis.”_

_Hux shook his head, staring steadily at Ren. “They’re tedious. I just told you.”_

_“It’s rain in general. You think you’ll always remember Arkanis when it rains.”_

_"I will. I don’t see rain that often. As you know.”_

_Ren leaned in closer, tugging Hux’s head cloth down, his expression one of concentration. “You want to forget. We should just make better memories so you forget the old ones.”_

_His lips met Hux's briefly, cold and unpleasant against his own. Hux shivered and stepped back, scowling, tugging his wrap back up. “No.”_

_Ren’s hand hung between them, at the level of Hux’s mouth. There were many reasons to reject Ren. It was cold. Raining._

_Mostly, it was that he felt the damp and cold all over him, the clammy feeling of his uniform sticking to his back, the way his little boots had slipped at his heels, splitting them open, the way he had bled into them._

_There just wasn’t anything remotely romantic about it, and nothing Ren could do would change it._

_“Come on,” Hux sighed, pushing past Ren and making his way once again through the stiff, unyielding grass. He felt the non-regulation native boots that Ren had bought him slipping at his heels as they filled with water, the mud threatening to suck them off his feet. “We’ll get warm and have some drinks. We never do that.”_

_He hated feeling like this, like the outdoors was somehow an odious trial that he might be crushed beneath. One way to forget all of it would be to let Ren fuck him into the mattress. That had been what he wanted with this extra day, though they could have done it just as easily in their bed on the_ Finalizer _._

_Ren, childishly, pushed past him and led their slog back to the town, masking his thoughts and refusing to look back as the rain continued to pour and the sky darkened. Hux watched as Ren’s steps grew heavier in the mud, watched the muck spatter up the back of Ren’s poncho and clump and drip at the hem._

_When they returned, Ren had remained silent, refusing to drink with Hux. Hux got steadily and unpleasantly drunk, and finally resigned himself to blowing Ren._  
 

 

 

He stared into the gray blankness of the clouds outside the energy field, obscuring his view of the city as the light faded and the temperature began to drop. Time passed, and both Hux and his robes dried out. The rain continued, and the energy field remained active, fat drops sizzling against it.

The clouds were a welcome relief to the view of the city. Hux had hoped he'd seen the last of it. He hated it, now and always. The sprawl, the excess, the government. All the people, pushing against each other and existing in such disorganized proximity. It would always be _too much_ , and unknowable to Hux. How strange, and oddly appropriate that his trials would cause him to wake up here, seemingly living happily with Ren in the place he despised most in the galaxy.

Worst of all, the longer he stayed on this planet, the more he dwelled on its destruction. Having seen it only once in person prior to Ventu, the decision to target it with Starkiller was abstract. Destroying the planet along with the New Republic government was necessary. The two were inextricably linked. He'd met Ben there, but Ben was the only thing he'd enjoyed about that trip, and Ben had left the planet long ago. The memories about Republic City itself lingered, fueling his propaganda for years. 

But it was different, being here and knowing that he had taken every single one of those billions of lives. It was difficult to look at the ghosts of these people now and ask them to dock his ship, schedule his appointments, or check Ren's name in hospital records. Up close, they were just people. And it was difficult to face what he'd done to them, even if it was undone now. Even if he still hated Republic City.

He jumped when the glass door slid open behind him, his hand automatically reaching for the blaster he didn’t have with him. He spun quickly, hand clamped reflexively to his hip.

But it was just Ren, expression furious and body language tense, his fingers curling and uncurling at his sides. Hux’s stomach dropped as he realized Ren’s anger hadn’t hit him before that moment. He hadn’t sensed Ren coming. What did that mean?

“I would have dressed if I had known you were coming. Met you at the door,” Hux offered, tugging the sash of his robe tighter around his waist, feeling silly and indecent and childish.

But also immensely relieved.


	18. Part Four: Lanval - Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick warning: I'm gross, so Hux impulsively licks a cut on Ren's torso. It's not a major wound, but Hux's tactile sensations while licking it are excessive. There's a single paragraph you can skip after Hux sees the cuts and burns on Ren's bare chest.

**Thirteen years ago...**

 

 

It took three months for Ren to be called back to the Supreme Leader, away from Trooper training and his new life with Hux. Ren received notice the night before his scheduled departure, and both the evening and morning were silent, grave affairs. Hux could feel Ren's reluctance in the way he focused inward, pulling away from their connection, and his obvious agitation. Hux could think of nothing comforting to say, reasoning that the Supreme Leader's training was a difficult but ultimately useful gift, and they would both be thankful for it in time. He tried to reassure Ren over their silent breakfast that he would await his return, but Ren had neither met his eye or responded. When Hux rose, reluctantly telling Ren that his schedule prevented him from seeing Ren off at the hangar, Ren had taken the news badly, retreating into their bedroom and sealing the door behind him.

Hux had begun his day feeling as if he had somehow failed. The inter-divisional training assessment, which he could neither miss nor reschedule, held no interest for him that morning despite its importance. He heard nothing of the Naval and Officer training programs, instead idly refreshing his messages until he received a notification that Ren’s ship had departed the east bay of the _Finalizer_. Later, he presented a meeting with his Sergeants that had been meant to update them about the training progress of the other divisions. Since he hadn’t heard a single one of those updates himself, Hux used the forty minutes to berate them about the slow adaptation of training strategies from the recent conquest of Opessa.

Afterwards, he attempted to calm himself by watching the best Trooper unit train with the new Opessa stealth techniques. His short temper quickly turned the session into a grueling survival technical that landed two of them in medbay.

Frustrated, and recognizing that he needed to reign himself in, he cancelled the rest of his appointments and went to the observation deck. It was mostly empty at mid-shift, the conversations low and unintelligible as Hux entered the dim room. He was glad for the near-solitude, and took a seat at the edge of the domed ceiling. The ship was near the Ane system, and three gas giants were visible, their surfaces swirling purple and white in perpetual turmoil, the debris in the ring of the nearest planet visible from the ship.

He distracted himself by studying individual trooper stats on his datapad, memorizing faces and specialties. It was something he could do without effort, absorbing in a way that would not allow intrusive thoughts.

He lost himself to the routine until he was startled by footsteps nearby. When he glanced up, the first thing he noticed was that they were no longer in the Ane system, as the gas giants were no longer visible in the observation dome. Hours had passed.

The second was Kor Bariss. She had spent the last several months reviewing Naval training on the _Conviction_ , aiding the command there. She had attended the inter-divisional training assessment earlier, but they hadn't spoken there. They hadn’t seen each other otherwise since the Academy graduation, between Hux being stationed off-planet and Bariss’s stint in the Navy, though they had occasionally exchanged comms.

“Lieutenant,” Hux greeted shortly, staring up at her and not bothering to rise from his seat. “I am currently off active duty.”

“Major,” Bariss returned crisply, her posture straight, her face still. “I came to report slander. Lies whispered behind your back. They say you were a tyrant today, distracted and unreasonable.”

“Oh?” Hux asked shortly, snapping his holopad off, resigned to the distraction. “And I suppose you gathered as much intel as you could, Lieutenant?”

“Armitage,” Bariss tried, her brows drawing together, though her posture remained unaltered. “You don’t let yourself lose control. Did something happen?”

“Did something happen,” he repeated bitterly, standing. “Do I need a reason? Is it so hard to believe that I wanted to correct bad habits, Lieutenant?”

Before he could continue, Bariss’s hand shot out and gripped Hux’s wrist in an iron hold. Her eyes didn’t leave his.

“Nice uniform, Major,” she said, her eyes dropping and her finger running over the _Tarkin_  stitched onto his rank insignia. “It suits you. The new rank, and the uniform. Congratulations.”

Hux sighed, pulling his wrist back gently. “You’ll earn it one day, Lieutenant.”

It was a ritual that they’d had since the Cadet training, when the best students were given the least worn-out uniforms. When they’d finally found a source for the soft kola wool in the Unknown Regions and had replaced all the reeking, awful Imperial wool uniforms with a low-cost, higher quality alternative, Bariss had used the texture of the fabric as an excuse to grab Hux’s wrist, or run her hand down his shoulder and arms. He had allowed it, until he’d rejected her outright just before they graduated.

When Hux didn’t respond, Bariss prodded further. “Armitage. I’ve been away for months. Will you brief me on what I missed?”

“Kor,” he replied, his own brows drawing together, his voice dropping. “I already told you my feelings.”

Bariss rolled her eyes, her posture relaxing. “Your _feelings_. As if you have any. I’m not trying to seduce you. Can’t you just talk to me?”

Hux stared at her. She offered nothing else, her face as blank as his own. It was true, that this was less than what they’d been in the Academy. Still, Hux was wary.

“We can talk here,” he offered stiffly, once again taking his seat. Bariss rolled her eyes again, but retrieved another chair, dragging it over to the area where Hux had isolated himself. The lounge had filled back up after the end of alpha shift, both with official meetings for beta shift and off-duty alpha officers. The din of conversation was louder, the occasional raucous laugh echoing against the high ceiling, the lighting brighter for the larger crowd. Hux and Bariss were the youngest officers in the room, as only the rank of Major and above were admitted to the lounge. Hux had personally entered the authorizations for both Ren and Bariss.

When Bariss sat, Hux eyed her, unsure where to begin. So Bariss was the first to speak.

“I heard about your father. Watched your speech. You didn't mention it in the comms.”

He hadn't. Hux kept his face neutral. “What was your opinion?”

“His death was sudden. Your speech was very genuine.” Her expression was equally neutral, her tone flat. Hux waited for her to offer her condolences.

She didn’t. “That’s out of the way,” she said instead.

“Yes.”

They sat in stony silence for a moment, staring at each other. If anyone would suspect the truth, it would be Bariss, though Hux thought she knew better than to admit it. Such rumors would be dangerous for him. He also suspected that if Phasma found out anyone else knew, he wouldn’t have to do the work of eliminating them himself.

Brendol had favored Bariss, knowing that she was close to Hux and giving her special considerations to spite him. It hadn’t been the blatant favoritism he’d showed Cardinal, which had been far more hurtful, but it had been enough. Bariss knew it for what it was, and had been close enough to Hux to exploit it while mocking Brendol for his transparency behind his back. She was the only one that spoke ill of him to Hux. Consequently, she had been the only person he occasionally confided in when he’d needed to complain about his father.

As they grew older, Brendol had implied more than once that Hux should pursue a private relationship with Bariss, which had been another good reason to reject her proposals. He’d never shared that with Bariss, though.

Bariss knew well enough how he felt about Brendol, and what his opinions on his death would be. But she had said nothing, and Hux felt something untensing between them. They wouldn’t speak of it, and it was a relief.

After a moment, her expression shifted to something more casual and interested, and she leaned forward, moving the conversation past the awkwardness. “How’d your planetside appointment go, at Laymar?”

“That isn’t within the scope of your brief.”

“ _Armitage_. When was the last time you were planetside before that?”

 _Days_ , he thought to himself, but he wouldn’t offer that to Bariss. “Jakku,” he admitted, “Just before we retreated into the Unknown Regions.”

Bariss nodded. “I went to Alis for my graduation holiday. Did I tell you that?” Hux shook his head. He’d been too wrapped up in his own plans, and the final requirements for graduation, to speak much to Bariss or anyone else about their holiday plans.

“Well, that was where I went. The beach. I wanted to see what swimming was like.”

Most people the same age as Hux and Bariss hadn't been swimming since their recruitment into the First Order. Some, like Bariss, had never experienced it. They were only just bringing swimming exercises back into the training programs, though the Troopers had been receiving survival training for nearly eight years.

Hux scoffed. “I had enough water as a boy.”

Bariss wrinkled her nose. “On Jakku.”

“Arkanis.”

“Oh. Right.” She frowned, glancing down for a moment. Bariss had been rescued from Pessan when she was the same age as Hux, but had received more rigorous programming. She had no similar childhood memories to offer.

“I didn’t care for the water.” She shrugged, moving beyond the unspoken topic of pre-Order memories. “It was like antigrav, except worse. There were so many people on the beach, too, and the sand made this horrible squeaking sound when people walked on it that drowned everything else out.” She shook her head, the corners of her lips twitching up. “I prefer starships.”

Hux nodded. “Yes.” Bariss opened her mouth, but Hux didn’t want her to ask about his own graduation holiday, so he continued. “The training facility on Laymar was adequate. I believe we learned what we needed to.”

He told Bariss about the day-to-day on Laymar, and she listened attentively and offered her own stories about the Naval pilot program. Slowly, Hux’s tension was forgotten, and he relaxed. This was preferable to the training meeting they’d had earlier. Bariss was giving him the criticism that would have otherwise been concealed by the Naval Officers, and he valued her opinion more than most of the ex-Imperials that made up the rest of the training staff.

Bariss paused after some time, the conversation ending naturally. But she kept her gaze locked with Hux’s, and obviously wanted to ask something else. Her pause meant that she was struggling to phrase the question, which was unusual - Bariss had always been easy around him. Needing time to ask a question was one of her tells for stress, and it was something they'd worked together to eliminate. That she did it now spoke of either her comfort with Hux or her dislike of the topic.

Eventually, she dropped her eyes and spoke. “I heard there was a new agent assisting you with training. I was expecting to see them at the meeting. I’ve only heard rumors.”

“ _Rumors_ ,” Hux emphasized, his stomach tightening. “Tell me the rumors first. I want to know how he comes across to the rest of the staff.”

“He’s an outsider,” Bariss rushed out quickly, her gaze darting away, and then back. Hux’s eyebrows went up. That's what bothered Bariss. It wasn’t done, recruiting outsiders, unless they went to the bottom of the program first. It would have sounded like an outrageous lie, coming to her in the form of a rumor.

“He’s a skilled outsider.” Hux confirmed the truth, but offered no further explanation. “Go on.”

“I’ve heard the program has changed in the last three months. But that the feedback is good. He’s a hand-to-hand specialist. Cardinal likes him.”

Hux made a noise of acknowledgement, but kept any other reaction to himself. Cardinal hated Phasma, and as far as Hux knew, Cardinal and Ren hadn’t met yet. Interesting, that Cardinal had offered any sort of public opinion.

Bariss rolled her shoulders in the barest suggestion of a shrug. “Cardinal said the Troopers were thrilled with the new trainer’s teaching style and the techniques he was offering. Said he was an amazing fighter.”

“ _Cardinal_  said? You spoke to Cardinal already today?”

Her lips twitched. “Jealous?”

Hux kept his face impassive, considering. If Bariss wanted to make an ally of Cardinal… well, there were worse ideas. As much as Hux hated Cardinal, the two of them together would have a positive impact on Trooper training. But he hated the idea of the two of them scheming behind his back.

 _Ren_. Ren would be able to tell if they were.

“You may speak to whomever you like, it’s no business of mine.”

Bariss leaned back, something shining in her eyes. “I’m sure.”

Hux waved a hand, dismissing the ridiculous topic. “Tell me more about the rumors.”

“That’s it. He’s formidable, an excellent teacher. The Troopers love him, Cardinal loves him. Troopers are jealous of those who have trained with him.”

Hux suppressed a smirk. This was excellent. If Ren endeared himself to the Troopers, all the better. He was pleased that Ren’s reputation was so good.

“So tell me about him,” Bariss continued, waving her own hand, leaning back in her chair, more relaxed now. “Who is he? Where did he come from?”

“Kylo Ren,” Hux said slowly, not sure how much to tell Bariss. She already knew everything she needed to, and Hux was reluctant to give her more. “He was an outside recruit. He’s just what we needed for the program. Has a completely new combat style, and can also lead Troops into battle.” The last part was not, perhaps, entirely accurate. Though Hux could picture it. Ren would do it, and in the not-too-distant future.

“Kylo Ren.”

“Yes. He also brought… his own disciples with him. They use the same techniques he does. Though, they are not him.” Hux considered their fates. It seemed that the Supreme Leader had no interest in them. Ren still trained with them daily, but they were being assimilated into a Trooper pesudo-routine. Hux hadn’t bothered to even look at them since he’d spoken to them alone. As far as he was concerned, they were Ren’s problem.

Bariss was nodding. “He sounds ideal. Who found him? I didn’t realize the Security Bureau was actively recruiting elsewhere.”

“They aren’t.” It was a plan that they had talked about, clandestine recruiting. They weren’t there yet. “He was a special case.”

“Special how?”

Hux paused, thinning his lips. He decided that the information was harmless. “I recruited him. He’s an agent from the New Republic. The circumstances were too good not to take advantage of. His loss is a huge blow to their... morale. He was an important public figure. He’s teaching us many things about-”

“What?” Bariss sat back up, her face registering uncharacteristic shock. “ _You_  recruited him? Yourself? How’d that happen?”

He was annoyed that she found it so uncharacteristic. “I chose him. He...” He stopped. He couldn’t explain, to Bariss or anyone else, that he hadn’t done it right the first time, that he’d divulged all their secrets and been rejected. He shook his head. “We were in contact, and he eventually joined us on Laymar just before the operations were suspended.”

“You…” she stared at him, shaking her head. “No. You never look beyond the Order. Everyone is below your notice. You don’t _do_  this. What aren’t you telling me? Who was he in the New Republic?”

“That’s classified,” he snapped, hating that she was pressing him like this. “It doesn’t matter. He’s here now.”

“He was supposed to be at the meeting earlier. Where was he?”

“The Supreme Leader has taken a special interest in him-”

“The _Supreme Leader_  approved of a New Republic defector, installed in such a high position?”

“Yes,” he snapped, his previous foul mood returning. He hated that Bariss had put him on the defensive about this. It was all _good_. They were both in a good place. “The Supreme Leader has additional roles in mind for him. As I said, he is a very valuable recruit.”

“But he hasn’t been… conditioned, has he?” When Hux didn’t answer, Bariss held his gaze, her expression freezing as she hid her thoughts from Hux. “You recruited him, and he’s been appointed as one of the leads in the training department. How closely are you working together?”

Hux stood, his fists clenching. “ _Kor_. That’s enough.”

“Enough of what? I thought we were talking about the new Training Officer.”

“He’s not an Officer.”

“Than what is he?”

“A… knight.” The stupid word burned in his mouth, and he could feel himself betraying his fury, his embarrassment. Bariss stared.

“A shame I didn’t meet him today.”

“Some other time,” he said shortly, standing abruptly, aware that he was fleeing the conversation. It was ridiculous. He hadn't reacted this way to any of the other conversations about Ren. There'd been plenty of questions from the ex-Imperials. Hux had controlled the conversation then, not caring what they made of the two of them.

Somehow, Bariss had made it more personal. Because she _knew_  him in a way that he should not have allowed.

He left the observation room with only a hand wave dismissal for Bariss, cursing himself. Between learning the new recruits and the training debrief, he’d managed to shake his feelings from earlier, only to have Bariss bring it all back. Returning to his empty rooms would not improve his mood.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
The weeks passed without Ren, and Hux allowed himself to fall back into routine. The Troopers were as enthusiastic about Ren’s new routines as Bariss had promised, and Hux took the best of the Troopers Ren had worked with and had them lead group exercises. Hux organized the sessions, but Bariss was the one that observed and evaluated the exercises, tailoring them for a broader application.

Even Cardinal approached him to offer enthusiastic praise and ways to adapt Ren’s techniques to the younger Trooper program. Hux wasn’t sure whether to take this as a goodwill gesture from Cardinal, or if Ren’s techniques truly were good enough to bridge the gap between them. Hux regretted not allowing Cardinal to train with Ren when he had the chance, though something in him still delighted in the slight.

“This really is groundbreaking,” Bariss commented as the two of them watched through the glass while a Trooper unit drilled.

Hux nodded, not taking his eyes from the exercises. “We’ve not been able to work hand-to-hand techniques this effective into the program before. Even Phasma’s methods weren’t this easy to adapt.”

“No.” Bariss glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “Has Kylo Ren sparred with Phasma yet?”

“No.” Hux considered it. “I’ll have him spar with Cardinal when he returns. Cardinal will learn the techniques better that way, and adapt them in ways that Ren cannot. But I don’t think it wise to have him confront Phasma.”

Bariss turned to glance at him more fully, a frown flickering across her features. “Oh.”

“Mmm, not like that,” he responded, taking her meaning. “I think it won’t go well for Phasma.” Or Ren, but he preferred not to think of that. “I don’t know that I necessarily want to give her that goal to work to.”

Bariss said nothing. Hux moved on, still not wishing to speak of Phasma to Bariss. “I believe it will be time for a ground technical soon.”

“Yes.” Bariss stood straighter. Hux suppressed a smirk.

“What are your thoughts on that, Lieutenant? Any ideas for sites?”

“I recommend we try an easy environment, sir. Urban. The evacuated city on Ten-kol might be a good staging area.”

“Exactly what I was thinking.” Hux turned to her. “Give the order, and see when we can schedule the necessary course corrections. Run a cost analysis to see if a transport would be more efficient.”

“Sir.” Bariss saluted, staring at him. Hux held her gaze and waited. But she said nothing, instead turning and departing crisply. He kept his face neutral, turning back to the training, waiting for her next move.

More time passed, and Hux was restless. The new training routines were good. They only needed the ground-based technicals to experiment with terrain, and learn which techniques would be useful where. Some mock skirmishes. He continued to allow Bariss to make arrangements, agendas, and allotments. He allowed Cardinal to choose the best candidates - as much as he would like to believe otherwise, Cardinal knew the troops better than Hux ever could.

Hux made improvements to the programming. Hux made propaganda. Hux made speeches.

Hux waited, annoyed that Ren’s absence could affect him so greatly. He shouldn’t have allowed it.

The notification that Ren’s shuttle was returning came without warning. Hux was in a meeting, and dismissed himself abruptly, without thought of consequence. Without any thought at all, really. He quickstepped across the ship, trying to make a plan for the rest of the day, wondering what condition Ren would be in. Would he be ill, as he had last time? Would they need to take a private transport to the suite? Would he be different in some other way, too difficult to predict?

It didn’t matter. He would be here, and Hux needed to see him to know how to react. He could feel the eyes moving across him as he made his way quickly enough to be conspicuous. Nobody ever _hurried_. But Hux didn’t care, and couldn’t stop himself, clamping a hand to his officer’s cap and feeling the weight of his greatcoat trail behind him.

He entered the bay just as the ramp for Ren’s shuttle lowered, steam obscuring the view of the shuttle for a moment. Hux paused, nearly out of breath, and watched as Ren emerged. His pulse hammered from the fast trip across the ship, and he could feel his face heat at the sight of him, gratified that Ren had kept the new look that Hux had chosen, even after a training session and time apart.

Hux wrestled his reactions back under control, chiding himself again for his uncharacteristic loss of personal control.

The space was large, packed full of ships being prepared and repaired, a bustle of equipment, droids, techs, pilots, and officers weaving and ducking in organized chaos. Hux saw none of it. He had eyes only for Ren. He watched Ren step down the ramp and across the hangar bay. Ren’s steps were faster, heavier, more confident than they had been before he left. When he’d returned the first time, Ren had been like a wounded thing, full of anger and unsure of himself. Now, he at least gave the appearance of a successful session with the Supreme Leader. Hux felt a gauzy presence envelop his thoughts - tired, so tired, but not the rage of his last return. No confusion. No _cold_. Just… resignation. It wasn’t positive, but it was so much better than last time. Hux straightened, wondering just how well it went.

A moment later, Ren’s steps faltered slightly as his helmet swung up and he obviously spotted Hux through the crowd. His emotions turned hazy again, and pressure took their place, a slight pain that Hux had grown used to, and had even missed. He spent a brief moment wondering why Ren was masking his emotions, but he supposed he would be doing the same if he could. He likely should be more embarrassed by just how much this reunion was affecting him.

Hux began moving forward through the crowd. Ren’s steps did not falter again as Hux intercepted him in the middle of the vast space. They stared at each other, nearly eye to eye, Hux still undecided about how this meeting should go, or what they should do after this. It would still depend on Ren.

He wanted to see Ren’s face, suddenly and acutely. But he kept his own facial expression under control, his voice steady, his posture correct as he inclined his head and offered a greeting.

“Ren.”

“Hux.”

Hux frowned. “Refer to me by my rank.” It was a breach in etiquette, but Ren had been away, and wasn’t used to it as Hux was. He told himself to let it go.

Ren cocked his head. “Why?”

“Because I deserve a basic level of respect.”

“Do you?”

Hux’s frown deepened. It was a silly thing to push back against, and he knew Ren was picking a fight. He let it go. “How was your training? Do you have anything to brief me on?”

“No.”

Hux paused. He searched for Ren’s thoughts, his emotions. They weren’t there, only the Force pressure and the mask that covered his face. Hux’s relief at seeing Ren quickly evaporated, replaced by wariness. He let go of his anticipation, deciding to keep things professional and distant for the time being.

“If that’s all, there’s much to discuss in the training program.” He turned, beckoning with a hand gesture. “Follow me, and we’ll-”

“We have an appointment first.”

Hux turned back around, more sharply, letting Ren feel his anger. “Do we, Ren?”

“Yes.”

Hux stared at him a moment, unable to read Ren at all. Hux glanced around, seeing who was nearby.

“There’s no one. No one cares about what you’re doing here.”

That was too much, and he felt the blood rush to his face again, hating that Ren could bait him so easily. He clenched his gloved hands into fists, keeping his expression carefully neutral, and pushed back against the pressure in his mind with his own fury. Rather than allowing Ren to antagonize and disrespect him in public, he turned, not caring if Ren followed him.

They took the transports back to their rooms, where Hux stood next to the doorway, waiting for Ren to enter before locking it with a slap of the panel.

“Take that helmet off,” he ordered, pointing to the table they had begun sharing meals at, where they’d been establishing their life together. The table where Hux had given him the helmet only months before, where he'd told Ren he would await his return.

Ren reached up and removed the helmet without argument, his expression amused. “Miss me, Hux?”

“Was that necessary?” Ren’s amusement was worse than the mask, and only made Hux angrier. He took several steps forward. “What has gotten into you? I won’t have you disrespecting me in front of the crew like that. If you have something to say to me, wait until we’re in private. Act like a civil human being.”

Ren held his glare, still smiling slightly. “Maybe I haven’t been properly _civilized_. How would I know how a civil human being acts? For that matter, would you?” Ren leaned in, directly into Hux’s personal space. “Is this a civil place, Hux?”

Hux took a step back, still furious, but more careful now, his eyes narrowing. Ren's tone was light, but the Force pressure was building around them. Something was wrong. “Has Snoke done something to you? Told you something?”

“Told me something?” Ren's expression went ugly, and Hux felt the awful cold for a moment, that terrible loss of control, gone just as he registered its cutting presence. Ren’s eyes flicked down, then back up to Hux’s face. “Yes. He told me how to actually better myself, and it was the truth. He told me how to be more powerful. He told me how to ignore distractions. How to disseminate lies. How to protect myself.”

Hux took another step back, and Ren stepped forward. Hux refused to be intimidated by Ren, or by whatever Snoke had said about him. “Are you trying to imply something? You’re blocking your thoughts, so you’ll have to use your words.” He took another step backwards and came up against the door.

“Your concern for me is so _touching_ , Major, so genuine.” Ren stepped in closer and pushed his face into Hux’s. Hux felt the heat of his breath against his lips. Ren’s eyes were dark, darker than they had been, and they pinned Hux more effectively than any of his physical or Force powers could have.

Hux felt Ren’s temper, suppressed, the edges of it licking at whatever barrier Ren was trying to maintain between their thoughts, the air thrumming with barely contained violence in the Force. “Is there anything you wouldn’t say to bend me to your will? A lie you wouldn’t tell to keep me by your side?”

Hux lost control of his temper again. “When have I _ever_  lied to you?”

“When you told me this is _where I belonged!_ ” The last was shouted into Hux’s face.

Hux supposed a more self-aware individual would be frightened of Ren. He really should have been. The Force was pressing in hard now, almost too thick to breathe, and it had the thin, cutting edge of chill again.

But instead of fright, Hux felt only anger. And hurt. He hated that Ren was capable of this, that he had made himself vulnerable in this way, and could no longer stop whatever came out of his mouth in response.

“I’ve never lied to you!”

“You told me this was where I belonged!”

“And you came! You told me no, and you came anyway! The decision was yours, Ben!”

“You-” Ren’s hands slammed into the door on either side of Hux’s head. Hux didn’t flinch. “You don’t think- What happened to me, with my uncle. It was you, Hux! It was because I met you, and I couldn’t forget! Do you think I’d be here if I hadn’t met you? I’d still be with my family, with my uncle-”

“You’d be miserable!”

And before Ren could say anything in response to that, Hux’s hand shot out, grabbing the hair on the back of Ren’s head, wrapping his gloved fingers in it and pulling, hard, as he brought their lips together. Ren’s hands were tearing at Hux’s belt, his tunic, but Hux batted them away, yanking at Ren’s clothes, which were gritty, sticky, disgusting. A part of him was repulsed that he was letting this happen. He hated that Ren spoke to him in such a way. He hated that the two of them were at odds after not seeing each other for so long. He hated that he let himself get angry, and that he let himself respond like this. He hated that Ren responded the same way, was probably hurt the same way Hux was. Why were they like this?

Another part of him wanted Ren under him, rejoiced as whatever barrier Ren had erected between them came down and all of Ren’s thoughts flooded through him - Ren’s own anger and frustration, and how truly miserable he’d been during his training weeks. Ren's pain, his sorrow, his regret. That he was tired and drained, that Snoke had taken everything from him.

Hux also experienced Ren's lust, his absolute and irrepressible joy at seeing Hux again. How _good_  it felt to have Hux’s lips against his, Hux’s gloved fingers in his hair, yanking at his scalp. His utter relief that Hux hadn’t changed. Ren had, apparently, been terrified of meeting Hux again after the things Snoke had said.

Hux moaned into Ren's mouth at the secondhand sensations. He missed being close, so very much, and could not hide his own relief. But he was furious that Snoke could drive them apart. He twisted Ren’s hair harder and muttered curses against his lips. It would have come to this between them anyway, fight or no fight.

Hux was aware that he had kissed Ren to stop him from saying he was miserable here, that he didn’t want to be with Hux. Hux never wanted to hear that, and he didn’t want to know what Snoke had said to Ren to make him like this.

Hux pulled his gloves off with his teeth, then tore the tunic and robes from Ren’s shoulders, letting his fingers play down over Ren’s chest, impatient for the feel of Ren’s skin against his own, unwilling to admit until now that this was what he had wanted when he’d run across the ship to meet him. Ren had been sweating recently, his skin was tacky and clammy. As he stroked his palms slowly down Ren’s sides, taking his time to feel the definition of Ren’s muscles as their lips worked together, Hux’s thumb encountered a rough divot in Ren’s flesh, and Ren hissed, pulling back from their kiss. Hux looked down to see a deep cut high on Ren’s ribcage, along with numerous burns over Ren’s chest.

He wasn't expecting injuries, and the shock of it was awful, that Ben Solo could let that happen to him. Hux could treat them easily. But before he could stop himself, he bent down, licking the cut, tasting the salt of Ren’s skin, the copper of his blood. He sucked, feeling the scabbing against his tongue, then the texture of it against his teeth, drawing out a hint of fresh blood. Ren gasped. Hux moved his mouth, licking up Ren’s chest and across one of the burns until he reached a nipple, taking it between his lips and squeezing gently, then sucking hard until Ren gasped aloud.

Satisfied, he dropped to his knees, putting his fingers on Ren’s belt. He glared up at Ren, past the slickness of his flat stomach, the width of his chest, his superficial injuries, the new wariness in his expression.

Hux sensed Ren wanted this. Needed it. But Ren was also exhausted, physically and mentally, and nearly dead on his feet. His defiance earlier had been an act of will and adrenaline, weeks of anxiety fed by the Supreme Leader's training, bottled up to unleash as soon as Hux appeared again.

“You don’t deserve this after how you acted,” he muttered, his attention focused now on yanking Ren’s too-tight pants down past his well-defined hips, below his thick thighs. Underwear was still not a part of the Supreme Leader's training regime. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”

And yet Hux couldn’t stop himself from leaning forward to suck Ren’s half-hard cock, the brim of his hat bumping into the disgusting, unkempt mess of his pubic hair. Ren groaned aloud again, and Hux paused, savoring the taste of Ren’s cock and the sound of his pleasure.

As he took a moment, closing his eyes and breathing through his nose, he felt Ren grasp his hat and pull it off. Hux looked up to see Ren holding the brim between his index finger and thumb, gazing down into Hux’s face for a moment before he moved to cup the back of Hux’s head in a perverse version of their first embrace in that Republican park.

“Hux, I-”

This, too, Hux didn’t want to hear, sensing it would be some sort of love confession. Hux couldn't bear to hear it on his knees, Ren's unwashed cock in his mouth, barely inside the door of their suite because neither of them knew moderation. So he pushed his mouth further down Ren’s cock, fully hard now and hot against his tongue, and Ren’s voice choked off into a moan, his eyes falling closed and his mouth falling open. He dropped Hux’s cap to the ground as he braced both hands on Hux’s shoulders, thighs shaking.

Hux swallowed him down, relaxing his throat as he pushed his lips to the root of Ren’s cock, his nose resting in the sour mess of his pubic hair. It should have been repulsive, but the smell of Ren went straight to Hux’s cock, and he put a hand to where his own erection was pushing against his pants. He let himself pause long enough to inhale once, then drew back slowly, his tongue caressing, his lips lingering on the head, sucking tightly before offering a gentle kiss and glancing back up at Ren.

Ren’s thoughts were an overwhelmed blur. He collapsed in front of Hux, his knees colliding hard with the floor, his face a mask of near-agony as he gripped his cock, jerking himself three times before coming between them. His eyes remained closed, his face red, his mouth open as he gasped for breath, making small moaning noises as he did.

Hux wiped at his lips, staring at Ren. He still had one hand over his own erection. He reviewed the last several minutes of his life, craving an explanation. What had just happened?

“This wasn’t what I had in mind for your return.”

Ren’s hand came up, bracing himself against Hux’s shoulder again. The color was beginning to fade from his face, and his hair hung limply to frame it. He cracked one eye - less dark, less intense than it had been, but still so very brown. It was as if Hux forgot the intensity of Ren’s stare until he saw it again. “What did you picture?”

Hux’s lips thinned. “Not this.” He grabbed Ren’s wrist, then pushed himself up off the floor, tugging Ren up after him. “Come. You’re exhausted.”

They showered together, Hux settling for a lazy handjob from Ren, who was nearly dead on his feet after his earlier outburst. Hux cleared the rest of his schedule for the day, deciding that lying in bed with Ren was a better use of his time. Ren was important to the Order.

Ren climbed under the sheets first, utterly exhausted, and Hux followed him wordlessly. He wasn’t tired, and part of him rebelled against laying about in the middle of a work day, shirking his duties. But the enormous bed Hux had chosen for the two of them was less lonely with Ren in it, and he decided to indulge himself. Hux allowed Ren to throw an arm across him, and Hux curled into Ren’s side, telling himself he’d move away when it became too hot.

“Ren.” He pushed his fingers through Ren’s still-damp hair, and Ren cracked his eyes. His thoughts were full of exhaustion, contentment. “Stay awake just a bit longer.”

“Why? I don’t think I can…” He trailed off, the hand pressed into Hux’s back making some unseen gesture, the flavor of his thoughts shifting slightly to lust.

“I don’t want sex. This is important, Ren. What did the Supreme Leader say to you?”

Hux knew he shouldn’t ask, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it, Ren’s accusations running endlessly through his thoughts. Ren’s eyes opened wider, his brows drawing together. A spike of anxiety came across both their minds.

“I don’t want to think about the Supreme Leader right now.”

“I know. But it’s important. He said something to you, Ren, did something to you. You came back here. You did those things.”

“Yeah.” Ren’s eyes drifted shut again. “The training. It’s… not good.” He pulled Hux tighter, dipping his head into Hux’s neck. Hux was frustrated for a moment, but Ren continued, inside Hux’s head this time.

_The Dark side of the Force, it’s… pain, anger. And no attachments. Snoke is trying to make me stronger. And he told me-_

The end of the thought was indistinct, but Ren was hurt, betrayed. Hux pulled on his hair until Ren’s eyes opened.

“Ren. It’s important. This is very important. Don’t. Lose sight.” He tightened his fingers again, not sure how to say what he wanted to convey here.

“Lose sight?”

“Yes. Of coming back here. You know I’ll always welcome you back. I told you that before you left.”

Ren’s eyes drifted closed again. He closed his own eyes.

_Don’t let him tell you that I don’t want you. That you can’t come back. To what we have._

“Okay,” Ren responded in a voice thick with sleep.

Hux was frustrated, unable to say what he meant, even in his own thoughts, even with Ren half asleep. _He’s trying to drive you away, Ren. Don’t let him isolate you. Don’t let him tell you I don’t want you, that you aren’t mine._

“Okay.”

 _He wants you for himself_.

He felt Ren shift, his grip tightening, disgust rolling through his thoughts.

_Not like that. But he is manipulating you, trying to mold you to his purpose. Learn from him, Ren. Take his knowledge, and grow. Be strong through the bad times. And come back to me. We’ll deal with him soon enough._

When Ren’s thoughts fell into the haze of sleep, Hux gripped him tighter. He hadn’t foreseen that part of Ren’s training might be some sort of emotional isolation, much like his Jedi training. And, of course, after what he’d seen of Snoke the last they’d been together, it was easy to believe that Snoke was eager to have Ren’s power himself.

He could take it from their cold, dead hands.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

After his father’s death, Hux had helped himself to every single one of his father’s private quarters among the fleet’s ships. He’d had them all gutted and remade more modestly, except for the quarters on the _Finalizer_. His father had occupied one of the Commander’s suites, and Hux had been able to lay claim to them despite not having command of the ship himself. He’d had his own quarters in the suite with his father, and he’d argued that he didn’t want to be reassigned with all his father’s things, many of which were recovered heirlooms from the Empire and wouldn’t fit into standard quarters. He’d pulled some influential strings, and his request had been granted. His father’s position with High Command as the head of the training programs hadn’t been filled, as Hux had assumed all the duties after his father’s death. His rank and age meant that he couldn’t officially take on a Command position, but it was only a matter of time, and the deaths of a few stubborn ex-Imperials, before he was appointed.

He’d immediately destroyed all his father’s possessions, heirlooms included, and remade the suite for himself. Officially, Ren was quartered in his former room, the one he’d occupied while his father lived. But of course Ren slept with him in the master suite, which he’d had fitted with the largest bed he could find. Eventually, they’d have Co-Command of the _Finalizer_ , and Ren could have his own quarters if he wished. The other Command suite was smaller, since Peavey didn’t have any living children.

The suite included a full private office, an enormous luxury on a Star Destroyer. But despite replacing everything and rearranging it, he could still feel his father’s presence crawling over him when he used it, so he tended not to. Still, it was too much a status symbol to abandon completely, and he always hoped that using it more would rid it of his father for good.

So that was where Hux ordered Bariss to appear the next day. She saluted, her eyes darting around the room to take in the changes. She’d seen it when it was still his father’s, but not since Hux had redecorated. Her eyes lingered on the view of the biological plant visible through the transparisteel wall. It was impressive, to say the least.

“You got rid of his desk.”

“It was hideous.”

She looked back at him, still standing. “Wasn’t it an antique?”

“I don’t care what it was, I got rid of all his things. Take a seat, Lieutenant.” He gestured to the two metal chairs he’d arranged in front of his desk.

“Yes, Major. Am I receiving new orders?” she asked, taking the seat on his right and folding her hands in her lap, posture perfect.

“Yes. Related to the ground-based training technical. I notice you made all the arrangements, scheduled it for three days from now.”

Bariss nodded once. “That was when the _Finalizer’s_  course brought us close enough to maximize fuel efficiency.”

Hux’s eyes went to the door, then to his desktop holodisplay, annoyed. It was growing late. He couldn’t start the meeting just yet, but Bariss’s comment made him think of something else. He idly punched a command into his desk console and brought up a holodisplay that Bariss wouldn’t be able to view from the other side, curious about something. “Yes. Incidentally, we’re in negotiations with a planet where we may be able to set up fuel production.”

Bariss’s eyes widened, and she leaned forward in her seat. “Fuel?”

“Yes. A lot of it.” He suppressed a smirk, but barely. “If the negotiations are successful, we will be able to increase fleet size and mobility.”

“Fuel,” she said, wonderingly, sitting back. “Is that our present destination?”

Hux’s eyebrows rose. “That’s above your security clearance.”

“Right. I’m sure this isn’t part of my official brief. Who am I going to tell?”

Hux didn’t know, which was the problem. It was a valuable bargaining chip, and he just realized he'd practically gift-wrapped it for Bariss out of boredom. His eyes went to the door again, and Bariss turned to look at it over her shoulder, her eyebrows drawing together. “Is someone else supposed to be here?”

“Yes,” Hux said, more annoyed, clearing the holoprojections, chastising himself again for the breach of security protocol. He’d been too casual, and he needed to stop doing that with Bariss. He hardened his expression, determined to continue in a more official capacity.

“I noticed you’d scheduled yourself as Commander of the technical.”

“Yes, sir.” It was a bold liberty to take, and Hux wondered what she would say about it. Apparently nothing, as her answer was brief, and contained no shame or apology. He would have done the same thing, had he not been given specific orders otherwise, and could not bring himself to speak against her initiative.

“Very well. I think you’re ready for it.” Her eyes lit up at that, and Hux looked back down to his desk, bring up the list of training exercises that he wanted Bariss to complete. She was ready, Hux knew, but it was also a very basic type of exercise, a combination of their usual ground technicals and some more of Ren’s hand-to-hand training. He’d give Command to someone much less qualified than Bariss, but it was true enough that she hadn’t had nearly enough responsibility. Hux was in a position to change that, and to put Bariss in his debt. It would be advantageous.

The two of them talked through the training exercises and mock battles that Hux had carefully scheduled for the three days of the trip. There would be three different units of soldiers, each with a Trooper Lieutenant to command them. Bariss would be overseeing all three, and Hux wanted to be sure she was familiar enough with the exercises to do it.

“Cardinal will be coming with you,” he said, frowning for a moment. She didn’t react to this, but he’d suddenly remembered she’d mentioned a familiarity with him. He hated to set them up together, but Bariss wouldn’t know the Troopers well enough to know how the drills were progressing. Cardinal would.

Bariss frowned as well, but she turned to look at the door again. “Did Cardinal not come to the meeting?”

“No, it wasn’t Cardinal.” Hux would never brief Cardinal in a Command meeting like this. It was a slight, certainly, but one he suspected was lost on the other man. His usual meetings with Cardinal were one-on-one affairs in the training levels. “Cardinal doesn’t need to be briefed on the exercises.”

Bariss’s expression darkened for a moment, but before they could continue, the other door to the room slid open. Not the entrance to the hall, but the one next to Hux’s desk, the one that led into the suite. His Commander’s suite. And Kylo Ren emerged, running his fingers through wet hair, shaking it, looking annoyed. He was in a tight-fitting sleeveless shirt and a pair of low-slung pants, the casual clothing he wore to exercise or to relax in the suite. His feet were bare, the pale flesh of his well-muscled arms was visible, and Hux suddenly remembered just how _good_  he looked, and why he’d ordered Ren under so many layers. So much skin visible in public was indecent. He was also certainly bare under his pants, which was intolerable.

“The training ran over. I had to-” He stopped, staring at Bariss. Bariss stared at him, her mouth slightly open, shock betraying all her careful conditioning. Hux felt himself flush with rage and embarrassment. He opened his own mouth to speak, but could think of no defense.

Bariss recovered before either Hux or Ren did. She turned to Hux, looking overly smug. “Friend of yours?”

Hux ignored her, glaring at Ren. “Training doesn’t _run over._  Where is your mask?”

Ren stared at him, with shock, confusion, and hurt clearly written in his expression, there for Bariss to see. He looked from her to Hux, then back again. His face hardened, and he bunched his fists at his sides.

“Training ran over because I ordered it, Major” His gaze slid over to Bariss. “I wasn’t told I was meeting with someone else.”

“I scheduled a Command meeting with you, and I expected you to be on time.”

“How was I supposed to know-” Ren’s mouth snapped shut. Hux felt Ren’s emotions sour, curling through his own humiliation before Ren shut him out completely. Hux hadn’t been able to sense his presence nearby, surprisingly, not until he entered the room - Hux had been too caught up in this presentation, eager to send Bariss and Ren planetside together. But Ren’s poor behavior wasn’t Hux’s fault. He shouldn’t have had to explain something this simple.

“Do you two need a moment?” Bariss asked. Her expression was mild, but she was obviously delighted. Hux glowered at her, Ren scowled.

“No, Lieutenant,” he snapped. “We can continue with the meeting. Kylo Ren, Lieutenant Korr Bariss. Please take a seat.” The two of them glared at one another, but eventually, Ren walked over and slumped into the empty seat, expression defiant. Hux stared at him for another moment before continuing. “You two will accompany Captain Cardinal to the surface of Ten-kol for a training mission. The mission will last three days, and you will both be staying planetside during that time with three units of Troopers. Exercises are expected to take place at all hours. They will primarily be terrain maneuvers incorporating Kylo Ren’s hand-to-hand techniques.”

“Yes, you already reviewed the maneuvers with me,” Bariss said, face blank.

“Where’s Cardinal?” Ren asked instead, ignoring both of them, glancing back to the door.

“That’s what I asked too,” Bariss muttered, looking at Ren out of the corner of her eye.

“Lieutenant. That’s out of line.”

“Armitage. The other attendant of this meeting emerged from your bedroom twenty minutes late. Whatever sense of decorum you were trying to muster is gone.”

At the use of his first name, Ren’s head whipped around, surprise on his face. Bariss didn’t look at him. Hux was furious.

“Discipline is always expected, Lieutenant, and that has been true as long as you’ve been a member of this organization,” he said, raising his voice, but betraying none of his anger through his expression or body language. “One more act of insubordination, and I will remove you from Command. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.” Her expression closed, her posture straightening. Hux glanced over at Ren, who had hunched slightly and proceeded to glower at Bariss.

“Ren. Would you like to go over the exercises, or are you familiar enough with them?”

“I made them.” When he said nothing else, Hux glanced down at his datapad.

“Fine. I’ll send you the agenda. The Lieutenant’s role will be to evaluate effectiveness, Captain Cardinal will evaluate performance. Yours is training. You will take the Captain and Lieutenant's advice into consideration, but as the exercises are yours, you will be the primary Command during the mission.”

A look of betrayal flashed across Bariss’s face for a single moment before she mastered it. Ren did not hide his smugness, either in his expression or his thoughts, which were suddenly open again. He smirked at Bariss, slumping back in his seat and crossing his arms comfortably.

“Sir. With all due respect to yourself and… Kylo Ren,” she turned toward Ren, nodding, and Hux suppressed his own smirk at how much that had cost her. He would have been furious had their roles been reversed. “Kylo Ren has only been with our organization briefly. I would advise a shared command, as a way of… helping Kylo Ren acclimate with this kind of technical.”

Hux leaned forward on his desk. “How many of these technicals have you led, Lieutenant?”

“The Cadet-”

“No. I asked you, Lieutenant, how many you’ve _led_.”

“None, sir. But with all due respect, I’d like to know how many Kylo Ren has _attended_.”

“All due respect,” Ren muttered, shifting in his seat, his thoughts turning dark again.

Hux would have reprimanded her for insubordination, but she was skirting the line, not actually insubordinate.

“As I believe I’ve mentioned to you, Kylo Ren is here to offer change and new insight into the training program. As such, I would like to know how these exercises go under his instruction.” He looked at Ren. “With the understanding that he take advice about First Order routine and standards under serious advisement.”

Ren shrugged. “Sure.” Bariss’s eyes turned toward him for a moment before flicking back to Hux.

Hux was disgusted. This was a disaster. “I’ve sent you both the expected goals and agenda outline. Dismissed.”

Bariss stood without a word and left the office. Hux watched her. She had her Command, but Hux had undermined her. It was satisfying, in some ways, but he wanted Ren to take the lead, and he wanted Bariss to see how important he could be, what he could really do.

He felt Ren’s dissatisfaction in the back of his thoughts. He turned to him, expression furious. “Helping yourself to my thoughts again?”

“No,” he said sullenly, staring at the office door. He turned to look at Hux, fury in his eyes. “She’s dangerous. She is waiting for you to show weakness.”

Hux raised his eyebrows. “Oh? You can read other people’s thoughts now? Since when?”

Ren’s scowl deepened, and he slumped further in his chair, crossing his bare arms across his chest, dropping his gaze. “My training has allowed me to… reach further, if I choose.”

“Mmm.” Hux felt a spike of jealousy at Ren being able to read emotions other than his, but he brushed it aside. This was ultimately useful. “That was a matter I wanted to speak to you about. She mentioned being close to Cardinal, and I want to know if they are conspiring against me.”

“Her and Captain Cardinal?” Ren’s expression was confused. “Cardinal’s loyal. He would never hurt you.”

That stung, more than Hux was willing to admit. “I didn't ask if Cardinal was _loyal_. Should I ask if Cardinal has been conspiring with you, too?”

Ren’s expression was wounded, but his mood darkened. “I would like to test Bariss’s loyalty,” he insisted.

Hux sighed. “Tell me what she does on this mission, then.”

“No.” Ren leaned forward. “Let me…” He reached his fingers out, gesturing to the side of Hux’s head. He felt a slight twinge in his thoughts. “Do that.”

Hux made a face, leaning back in his seat. “You said that-”

“No. Not like you and I.” Disgust coiled through Ren’s thoughts.

“You said that’s the only way you could make a mental connection, to read actual thoughts.”

“I’m… learning. As I said.” Ren’s expression was intense, his lips pinched together. A chill fell between them, sharp and painful, as the tone of Ren's thoughts shifted. “I could do it to her. I can... take them. I want to try it.”

The flavor of that statement was repellent, and he took offense on Bariss’s behalf. “Korr Bariss is one of the most loyal Officers in the Order. She might scheme behind my back, but that's to be expected. Just tell me if she’s going to kill me.”

He could feel Ren warring with himself, anger and frustration. The chill dropped away as his thoughts obviously turned away from his use of power. “She will kill you. As soon as she’s able.”

Hux rolled his eyes. This was a blatant lie, and at Hux’s exasperation, Ren guarded his thoughts again.

“Fine. As you say. Good thing I have you to watch my back.” Hux stood. “I’m going to end this pageantry.”

“Where are you going?”

Hux wrinkled his nose. “What does it matter to you?”

Ren stood as well. “Aren’t you going down to brief Captain Cardinal?”

“Yes.”

“Let me go with you.”

“Get your kriffing mask. And your boots and tunic.”

Ren’s brows drew together and his posture tensed, but he obeyed. He turned to enter their rooms, but Hux took three quick steps, putting a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“Ren.” He turned, annoyed. Hux tightened his grip. “If I schedule a meeting with you, you will be on time. You will arrive fully dressed, and you will _not emerge into my office from that suite again_. Do you understand?”

Ren shook his arm free, furious. “Why? Don’t want people to gossip?”

“Yes! It’s no one’s business where you sleep. And…” Hux waved a hand at the office, nearly speechless. “That can’t happen again! Certainly you can understand why.”

Ren glanced at the hall, then back to Hux. “Are there more people in the ship like Bariss, then?”

“Like Bariss,” Hux repeated flatly. So Ren had… what? Read Bariss’s mind? Read Hux’s? Believed they were somehow involved?

“I didn’t have to read your mind. You… _think_  of her differently than the others.”

"You are reading my mind," Hux snapped. “You believe I regard her as I do you?” Hux rolled his eyes, making for the hallway. “As you like. I’m going to speak to Cardinal.”

“I’m coming.” He jammed his palm into the lock of the door into the suite, then turned around. “Is there a secret entrance to your rooms I should know about? One you let your other partners use?”

Hux glared at him. The implication was insulting. He’d told Ren. He’d _trusted_  Ren. And it was being thrown back in his face. What a poor idea this was. This kind of entanglement.

Ren huffed, turning back to the open door. Hux followed him, just to make sure he dressed properly. Annoyingly, Ren attending the briefing with Cardinal would be helpful, as they both had insights into the soldiers that Hux did not.

With the helmet on and his thoughts closed, Hux wasn’t subjected to Ren’s wounded feelings. On their way out, Hux paused, then turned, hitting a concealed switch near the entrance. A wall panel slid open to reveal a small lift transport, dimly lit and barely big enough for two, the air inside the shaft musty and smelling of oil.

His father had built it, though Hux had never learned why. Brendol had always made sure his lovers were public knowledge, which was part of the point, as far as Hux could tell.

He gestured to the lift, smirking. Ren stomped in and Hux followed, closing the door and setting their destination to one of the transportation hubs. He didn’t explain himself, though he was sure Ren could read his thoughts on the matter anyway. Or maybe he couldn’t, and he assumed something else. If Ren was foolish enough to truly believe that Korr Bariss came into their rooms through that passage, Hux had badly misjudged him.

Ren’s posture reflected his tension, and being in the small lift with him was like riding with a caged animal. When they both exited and boarded a larger inter-ship transport, Ren finally turned to him, still annoyed.

“Why can’t I just do the exercises with Cardinal?”

This was extraordinarily childish, but Hux let it go, instead bringing up his datapad, affecting disinterest. “Because someone needs to keep to a schedule, and as we discovered this morning, Cardinal is obviously too amenable to your requests to do so. Bariss will make sure the exercises run successfully.”

“You can’t be serious. Why are you _really_ sending her with us?”

“Because that’s part of the program,” Hux snapped, still not looking up from his datapad. “Like it or not, it’s her job. It’s what Officers do, Ren. They keep things running smoothly.”

“Why can’t you come with us?”

“Because I have to oversee other things, and it’s easier to do that with the comms on the ship, rather than in an abandoned town while I’m doing something else all day.”

Ren slumped against the wall of the transport, crossing his arms.

Hux nearly jumped when he heard the plea in his thoughts.

 _Please_.

“What?” Startled, he turned and looked at Ren, his expression unguarded for a moment.

“I just got back,” he answered, not turning to look at Hux.

Hux stared before letting out a slow breath. He counted to five, dismissing all his anger, his tension, his bad feelings about this mission. He lowered his eyes to his datapad again, wanting to appear disinterested still.

 _It’s only three days. And we have tonight._  He glanced at Ren out of the corner of his eye. _I can wrap up my shifts within two hours, if you wish_.

“I do.”

He felt Ren open his thoughts back up, and felt his low-level sadness, his anxiety, and his excitement. Hux knew he would like being trusted with something like this. He smirked, turning to look at him.

“It gives you purpose, Ren. It’s what you’re here to do.”

A smug sort of pride followed that, but Ren said nothing, so they rode in silence to the training levels where Cardinal would meet them.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

To Hux’s massive annoyance, it was an urgent comm from Cardinal that alerted him to the situation on Ten-kol.

The alert came through while he was on a public inter-ship transport. It was on the emergency channel linked to his wrist comm, and he warred between pettiness and protocol - it was Cardinal, and it would be satisfying to undermine him in front of others. But the emergency channel was classified, and that included Cardinal’s urgent comms. So he stepped off the transport immediately and entered a vacant meeting area, bringing up Cardinal’s torso life-size, frowning when he noticed the red armor had been damaged and dirtied. It hadn’t occurred to him to wonder at the nature of Cardinal’s message until that moment.

“Captain. What is your emergency?”

“Major. There’s a rebel insurgency on the planet, and they are attempting to re-take the vacated city of Rellen.”

“They… what? Repeat, Captain.”

“Sir, there’s a large group of belligerents that are actively firing on and attacking the city we are currently garrisoned in. Request support and instructions.”

Hux took a moment to process this. “Where is Lieutenant Bariss?”

“Holed up in a command center. Ordered scouts out to number the insurgents, their weapons, and their strategy.”

“Scouts?" Stormtrooper scouts weren't the best strategy, especially scouts equipped for training. They stood out. "How bad was the surprise? Any casualties?”

“Light, sir, so far. Maybe five dead, from the initial wave. We dug in, secured buildings for all the units. They haven’t been able to penetrate yet, but they’re loud.”

Hux sighed. “In your opinion, Captain, would you be able to take the insurgents with your current force?”

“Easily, sir. But we need a Commander to coordinate the fronts. And support would ensure the victory with the fewest casualties.”

Neither Ren nor Bariss could coordinate fronts. Cardinal followed orders to the letter, and would make sure all would do as they were told. But he was not a creative individual, and knew it. Hux clenched his jaw.

“I will contact Commanders Ren and Bariss. Maintain present position.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hux cut the signal, staring at the empty space where Cardinal had been. He allowed himself to lean forward on the table, and counted to ten.

He had given Bariss specific instructions to scout the forest and outlying areas before the exercises began. There were concerns about forces lying in wait to re-take the town after the evacuation. The First Order was preparing to re-colonize it with a different species - one that specialized in a specific type of agriculture, and would have no interest in any holdover local politics. The nearby patrols had done several sweeps, but there was still a danger. He’d warned Bariss about this, it was part of the brief.

He glared down at the tabletop. She may have done as instructed, and they may have hid very well. Such things happened. But it was her mistake, and she would own it.

He huffed, punching in a different comm code. Voice only.

“Ren. Cardinal commed me. What’s your situation?”

“I’m with Esk unit. We’re in… I don’t know, some building. It’s tall. Bare furnishings. Government, maybe.”

Hux wrinkled his nose. “I don’t care about the building. Are you waiting for orders from Bariss?”

Ren hesitated. “I… no.”

“Did you sweep the forest before the exercises began?”

“We did exercises. We didn’t… search.”

“Okay.” Good to know. “Do I understand the situation correctly? A group of armed insurgents is attempting to take the city, and you are barricaded in three buildings?”

“Yeah.” Ren’s voice was tense. Hux heard nothing in the background.

“I’ve been informed that there were casualties. Can you tell me how many?”

“I don’t know. A few. There was… an explosion. I… sensed something before they came, and I tried rounding up the unit that was training, I think that helped. We retreated into the buildings, I don’t know. Cardinal and Bariss did that part.” His voice was unsure. This wasn’t how he spoke through his Kylo Ren mask, though Hux could hear the vocoder. He was shaken. Hux didn’t blame him. He wasn’t trained for this. It wasn't supposed to happen.

“Are you in the same place as the Lieutenant and Captain? Are they in adjacent buildings?”

“No, we’re separated. I think each of us has most of a unit.”

“Find one of them. Preferably Cardinal. Do you know where his unit is?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Rendezvous with Cardinal. He’s holding position. Then move both units over to the Lieutenant. Comm me when you’re in position.”

Ren paused, and Hux heard the hum of his lightsaber activating, very distinctive over the audio pickup. The hair on the back of Hux’s neck stood up. Ren was going into battle, would need to enter active combat to move to Cardinal. Hux hated that he couldn’t see it. But given Ren’s unsure tone, he offered support.

“Ren,” he said very quietly. “Everyone goes through their first battle.”

“Have you?”

Hux paused, then ignored him. “We have a word for a Commander’s first battle. It’s-”

“I’m not scared, Hux. I don’t care about any of that.”

Hux rolled his eyes. “Fine. Then comm me when you finish the maneuver.”

“Why?”

“Because I need to coordinate with you and Bariss, hear what the scouts bring back-”

“No.”

Hux paused. “What?”

“No. If I’m going out there, I’ll take care of it.”

Hux was shocked. Indignant. No one directly disobeyed a direct order like that. But it was the twisting feeling in his gut that bothered him more. He slid his hands down and wrapped his fingers around the edge of the table. Ren had never really trained in battle, and though he was very fierce with those demonstrations and training exercises, he’d never faced down someone actually trying to kill him. Everyone else had.

“Ren, you will not _take care of it_ -”

“Yeah. If I’m going out there, I’m just going to clear them out. It’ll be faster.”

“You’ll be killed, you can’t just-”

The comm went dead, the telltale hum and spit of Ren’s lightsaber suddenly silent. Hux frantically typed in Ren’s frequency again, but there was no answer. Furious, he commed Bariss.

“Lieutenant, do you see Kylo Ren from your current position?”

Bariss paused before answering. “Major. There is a situation, but we currently have all the Troopers-”

“I don’t care about your take on the situation, Bariss. I asked you if you could see Kylo Ren.”

“Not visually, no. He’s in a nearby building with Esk unit. I’m waiting-”

“He’s leaving. Go support him. Call the Captain and tell him to do the same.”

“I’m… sorry, he’s _what_?”

“Lieutenant. Your Commander is exiting his current location, presumably with the rest of Esk unit, to confront your insurgents. I want you to support him, and reduce the total number of casualties.”

“Why did you authorize that? You’re deliberately undermining me, and that’s completely-”

“If you think I _authorized_  or ordered that, you don’t know me at all. What I did _authorize_  was a search of the forest surrounding the settlement. Was that completed prior to the beginning of the exercises, Lieutenant?”

“We completed the exercises-”

“Did you complete the _search_ , Bariss?”

Bariss paused. “No, sir. That would have put us behind schedule-”

“I don’t need this right now. I need you to support Kylo Ren.”

“Hux, if you think I’m going to throw away all these lives to protect your new-”

“Stop. Think very, very carefully about whether you want to complete that sentence, on record, Lieutenant.” When Bariss was silent, Hux continued. “I am your Commanding Officer, and I gave you orders. Follow them.”

Hux cut the comm. For good measure, he commed Cardinal again and gave the same orders. Cardinal accepted and exited the building.

After ending the call with Cardinal, there wasn’t anything else for Hux to do but wait in his empty meeting room. They had no tech on the planet that would allow him to watch as the battle commenced. He wouldn’t know how Ren fared until they commed afterwards. Hux tried Ren’s comm several times, but Ren did not answer. Hux imagined him in training, saw him on Exitens scaring those warring clans with the Force. Saw Ben Solo’s purple lightsaber, in countless holos and again in person, on Hosnian Prime, as he sat and watched in Ben’s clothes.

Hux locked the door to the meeting chamber, then took a seat at the long conference table, not even bothering with the empty gesture of sitting at the head. He pressed his forehead into the cool surface of the table and closed his eyes.

The sickness in his stomach wouldn’t go away, not until they finished. He hated it, hated being this vulnerable.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
He met the Commanders in the hangar bay immediately after the battle ended, the training exercises cut short and the transports ordered back to the _Finalizer_  by Hux.

Ren hadn’t accepted any comms since he cut Hux off. It had been Bariss and Cardinal who had filled him in on the details of the battle. Ren’s decision had been right, and Hux had been furious when he’d learned that the Commanders had let three hundred Troopers be pinned in by fifty armed insurgents. They’d allegedly had a rocket launcher, and that had been the initial attack that killed five Troopers and caused the rest of the force to scatter. There were injuries, but no further casualties. None of the insurgents had been captured or interrogated. Hux had ordered another two units of fresh Troopers to sweep the forest thoroughly and clear them out once and for all. They would hold the stars-damned city until the colonists arrived.

“Captain Cardinal. Dismissed. You performed admirably, and I will place a commendation in your file.”

Cardinal paused, and Hux could sense him staring through his helmet. Even Bariss was taken aback for a moment.

“Yes, sir.”

With no further commentary, Cardinal gestured and led the three hundred Troopers from the hangar. Bariss stood at attention in front of him. Ren lurked, shoulders slumped, fingers curling and uncurling at his side.

“Both of you. Follow me to debrief.”

Hux turned without looking to see if his orders were followed. They travelled in silence. He had planned on taking them to a meeting room, but instead he led them to his private office, deciding to bring the whole debacle full circle.

When the door was closed, Hux rounded on the two of them. “That was an absolute _humiliation_.” Neither Bariss nor Ren spoke, so he continued. “Clearing those pathetic rebels out of the woods beforehand should have been child’s play! It was routine, it was safe, it was _protocol_. Lieutenant Bariss, this will be noted, and you will be disciplined. You will be stationed planetside with the garrison until the colonists arrive.” Hux turned to his desk, refusing to slump against it, and unable to look at either of them. “What a miserable first command for both of you.”

“Hu- _Major_ ,” Bariss caught herself. Her vice was sharp, but Hux did not turn around. “We did search-”

“You did not.” Hux did round on her at that. “You did your _exercises_ , not a proper search. I saw your minutes. Do not lie to me, Lieutenant.”

“As I said, Major, time did not permit-”

“Safety permits much, Lieutenant. The agenda I gave you allowed for such searches.”

“I modified it to include more-”

“Have we learned why it’s a bad idea to second-guess commanding officers, Lieutenant Bariss? Or will you need another lesson?”

Bariss was silent. Hux turned on Ren.

“You disobeyed a direct order.”

“I don’t take orders from you.”

Hux felt his face twitch with contempt. He felt nothing from Ren. Every barrier was up between the two of them.

“You take orders from me when you’re on my missions.”

“I was right. You weren’t there.”

“You have never been in active combat-”

“Neither have you.”

Hux breathed through his nose. “I am your Commander-”

“No. You’re not.”

“ _Ren_.” He turned to Bariss. “Report to the Starboard third level hangar at the beginning of first shift. Dismissed.”

Bariss’s face twisted. “Enjoy your lover’s spat.” Before Hux could reply, she turned and left. Hux stared after her, then rounded on Ren, staring into his expressionless helmet. Hux didn’t care what he looked like, what he felt. The barrier was still up between their thoughts. It didn’t matter.

“You will not do this. Do you understand?”

“Hux. I was there. You weren’t. I knew I could handle it.”

“You didn’t know that! I didn’t know that!” Hux was breathing heavily, his fists were clenched at his sides. He was losing his composure. He forced himself calm, forced himself to unclench his fists. It wasn’t… it wasn’t _that bad_. He’d had Commanders fail before. In fact, in terms of failure, this was a rousing success. They knew the insurgents were a risk. Casualties were low. Bariss and Ren should be disciplined for not following orders, but it was a minor point. There was no need to be upset. _Affected_.  He would not be shouting at anyone else who had made such an error.

“You have to understand, Ren. I know how this works. You don’t. I’m looking out for the lives of the Troopers. I know how to handle these situations. Strategically. Strategy doesn’t include running blindly into battle with a laser sword.”

“I don’t know why you're making a big deal about this.” Ren sounded exasperated. “I protected them. I figured out where the enemy was holed up, and I ordered Troopers to those positions. Behind them. So they didn’t get killed. I didn’t get killed. We finished. We could have kept training if you hadn’t given that stupid evacuation order.”

“You could have died! So could everyone else! It’s not a game, and what you did today was reckless and unsafe. It jeopardized lives. It was you showing off, trying to prove that you knew better than me.”

“I did!”

“No.” Hux shook his head. He’d spent all his worry, his anxiety. Now he was just tired. Disappointed. He pushed the thoughts to Ren, sure he could pick up on them. Stared into his helmet.

“I thought you were smarter than this. I thought you were different. Not some showoff.” He shook his head, walked to the public door of the office. “I don’t trust people like you with the lives of my Troopers. I space them.” He put his hand on the control, glancing over his shoulder.

“If you’re going to do this, go back to the Supreme Leader. Learn what you can from him. Maybe you can just go into combat by yourself. But you don’t know how to work with others, and you don’t seem eager to learn.”

“It’s… not.” Ren stepped forward, reached for the latches on his helmet.

“You’re a liability, and I regret letting you command that mission.”

He left Ren in the office and did not return to their rooms that night, furious that his trust in Ren had been so misplaced.


	19. Part Four: Lanval - Chapter 3

Ren looked furious, his body language, expression and thoughts consumed by it. They stared at each other, and Hux could sense an edge of incredulity - there was something about Hux that was, apparently, infuriatingly out of character. Hux nearly laughed.

Ren swept his gaze over Hux, head to foot. Hux was still wearing the soft black robe, the tie around the waist loose enough that it had fallen open. He was naked beneath, though only his bare chest and a thigh were visible. Not that Ren seemed in the mood for a tease.

“Are you sick?” Ren finally asked. The question was abrupt, nearly snapped, though it seemed genuine.

Hux opened his mouth to make a cutting remark, then closed it, tilting his head to the side. Was he sick? Maybe that was true.

His silence only made Ren more furious. “Jol commed when you didn’t show, and I had to tell her I didn’t know where you were. You weren’t answering your comm. You hadn’t been to your meeting with Wenmar either, and you missed the holoconference with-”

“I was here.” Hux cut him off, a spike of panic pushing him to stop Ren before he named more names that Hux didn’t recognize. What meetings? Who were these people?

Ren’s eyes flicked over the balcony, then back to Hux. He closed his eyes and mentally performed a relaxation technique, one of the only things he'd kept from his Jedi training. Hux hated it, since he only ever did it in the middle of arguments with Hux - never when he lost his temper in training, or at meetings, or when an Officer delivered bad news. It was condescending, as if _Hux_  was the one being irrational.

He bit back his usual retorts, and instead focused on the pulse of Ren’s anger abating, the feeling of his emotions stilling, and watched as the tension flowed out of his body. When Ren was finished, he rolled his shoulders, then fixed Hux with a grave look and pushed aside the transparisteel door that led into the suite.

“Inside.”

Hux wordlessly followed Ren back into the opulent, unfamiliar room, with its giant holoset and its ridiculously plush carpeting. Ren was wearing socks, Hux noticed, along with a more formal tunic over tight pants, all in his usual back.

All of it was still unfamiliar, including whatever Ren was about to say to him. Ren’s presence hadn’t eased the foreboding that had built throughout the day. Hux still felt alone, even while staring at Ren’s back and feeling the comforting touch of his thoughts, frustrated though they were.

When the transparisteel door clicked back into place, Ren turned to him, studying him again. Hux could feel the concern that had replaced his anger, and his incredulity, that Hux was… somehow not right. Hux crossed his arms and frowned, already defensive about whatever Ren was about to accuse him of.

“That meeting with Wenmar took you months to arrange. You should be the one angry about that.” He shook his head, looking amused. “You won’t get a second chance.”

Hux couldn’t think of a response to that, and when he remained silent, Ren frowned, growing more worried. “Do you want a drink?”

“Yes,” Hux answered quickly, relieved. Ren stared at him for a moment, his expression inscrutable, the disappeared behind the countertop in the kitchen, retrieving a bottle and pouring a yellow liquor into a small glass. Hux downed the glass in one swallow.

He gagged and nearly threw it up again, putting a hand over his mouth and swallowing convulsively, trying hard not to cough. The aftertaste burned in his mouth, ashy and dry. When he was sure the alcohol would stay down, he raised his watery gaze to Ren, who was staring at him, confused.

“Was that poison?”

“No, just the Nakirt,” Ren answered, his own glass paused at his lips.

Hux narrowed his eyes. “You drink it.”

Ren narrowed his own eyes and tossed back the shot with no visible reaction. Hux searched his thoughts, but could find no discomfort or hidden motives from Ren.

“I thought you had a bad day.” Ren shrugged. “You should have said something if you didn’t want it.”

“Why would I _ever_  want that?  It’s offensive. I’ve had jet juice that tasted better than that.”

Ren rolled his eyes. “Right, like you’d ever touch jet juice. You told my dad it would make you go blind.”

“When Han Solo offered me jet juice?”

“Yeah, when we were… Hux?”

Hux had dropped his gaze to the carpet. Of all the times he’d sought Ren, all the lives he’d now seen for the two of them, never had he felt like such a stranger in his own body. Whatever had happened to him here, it was… not his life.

“I-,” he began, shaking his head, but finding that he was unable to lift his gaze from where his bare toes sank into the gray carpet. His confidence was gone. His surety that he was right, and that he would succeed, was one thing he clung to more desperately than anything else.  He'd lived through famine, disease, and deadly conditions with nothing more than his confidence that he would survive.  His drive to succeed had led him to outmaneuver colleagues that wanted him dead.  And it had pulled him through more than one hopeless, hostile situation since his trials had begun on Ventu.

But this?  A life with Ren where they had a nice suite, where Ren was _concerned_  and Hux knew his family?  This was safe.  This was what he wanted.

And still, he couldn't lift his eyes from the floor.

Ren stepped from around the counter, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. Hux still didn’t look up. Ren’s thoughts were full of confusion, and pity over… Hux’s lack of confidence, he supposed, that he was having some sort of quiet breakdown. Hux didn’t want his pity. He loathed what he knew was about to happen.  Suddenly, explaining everything to Ren again was almost unbearable.

“You were off last night, too. _Are_  you sick?” Ren still asked the question in a way that implied he knew Hux wasn’t, and that Hux would somehow punish him for believing it.

Hux did look up then, relishing everything about him - his full lips, the crease between his brows, the moles on his pale skin, the incredulity about Hux being ill. That fucking expression on his face, worried and pitying. He hadn’t looked like that very often, because Hux never needed his pity.

After a moment spent tracing and memorizing his features over again ( _the same, they were exactly the same - this was more Ren than any of the others_ ), Hux gestured to the couch in the sunken area of the main room. They’d have to get this part over with before they moved on, though Hux hated it.

“Hate what?” Ren asked, stepping down and sprawling on the sofa, legs stretched out, the effect of his unusual formal attire completely ruined. Hux frowned and sat next to him, back straight, making an effort to sit properly in his robe.

“You said I’m not myself today.” He gestured to his temple. “Read my memories. That’s easier than explaining.”

“I know what your memories look like,” Ren said, dismissively, a little impatiently. “Just tell me what’s wrong.”

“No. You don’t know what they look like.” Hux tried a command, loud and sharp. “Do it. You’ll understand then.”

Ren opened his mouth to answer, but Hux cut him off, knowing him too well and impatient to skip this part. “We could continue to argue about this. Or you could simply exert the small amount of effort it would take to humor me.”

Hux immediately regretted the outburst, disappointed that he’d only been in Ren’s company for five minutes before snapping at him and taking his powers for granted yet again. But he also wasn’t wrong. He tried to phrase an apology to that effect while Ren glowered at him in silence.

After a pause, Ren’s fingers came up to Hux’s temple, and he leaned forward and closed his eyes. Hux closed his own eyes and braced himself for the pain, thinking of having his memories ripped from his mind by both Snoke and Senator Ben Solo. He knew it would hurt, but he’d earned it, and it was simply how Ren’s powers worked.

It took a moment to realize there was no pain this time, that Ren was coaxing memories from his thoughts with ease, examining the day Hux had spent in the suite with a feeling of disappointment. He inhaled sharply, not from Ren’s intrusion, but from his own surprise at Ren’s skill.

Hux let his hand come up over Ren’s, then directed him through his memories. First to their rooms on the _Finalizer_ , a memory of the two of them eating a meal, arguing about the droid-prepped meals and who would eventually learn to cook. Another day, at a meeting, where Ren had stood up and subtly threatened a Colonel who had overridden Ren’s command and dismissed his concerns about a mission, and Hux had been so proud of him. A memory of Ren training with the Troopers, another of Ren in a TIE that Hux monitored from the bridge, yet another of Ren on the ground on Teram when Hux had watched the holofeed through his helmet. Meeting Ren in the hangar after he returned from Snoke. When they had stopped the feuding settlements on Exitens. When they had first met. For good measure, Hux showed him one he hadn’t shared before, of slicing his datapad in a Cadet-level history class and watching one of Ben Solo’s holos furtively.

It was a lot. Nearly Hux’s entire life, all the parts that mattered most to him. His private feelings and emotions were attached to each memory, which Ren had normally been aware of at the time. But sometimes, Hux had admired him from afar. His admiration, his awe, his attraction, the comfort and pride he took in Ren. All the good things, and none of the bad. He’d laid himself open in a way that he hadn’t before, but he felt that it was the right way to begin his life with this version of Ren.

When he opened his eyes, Ren’s hand was still against his temple, but he was staring at Hux, confused.

“Those aren’t memories.” He shook his head, swallowing, his expression turning more troubled, his thoughts defiant. “Those aren’t our memories. What were they?”

“Our memories,” Hux echoed, disappointed. Ren’s hand stayed in place, pushing his fingers into Hux’s hair. It felt good, and he wanted to lean into it. But he was hurt that Ren didn’t believe his sincerity. “Do you think it’s all a dream? A fantasy I made up for myself? I know you can tell the difference.”

Ren scowled, taking his hand away and turning to face forward, not looking at Hux, dismissing all of it. “Those aren’t your memories. I should know.”

“You do know. You’re just refusing to believe it. You saw everything. You know what a memory is, don’t you? You know that I. A vision, I wouldn’t have… felt the same way. About you. Correct?”

Ren stood, posture tight and fists at his sides, still not looking at Hux. He began pacing around the sunken living area. “Then where are your real memories? They're still there. I could find them. None of what you just showed me was real.”

“It was.” He stood, slightly frustrated himself. “Those are my memories of… us,” he forced out, turning red, forcing himself to say it. “I have been… through an ordeal. I continue to wake up as myself, but with my circumstances… changed.” He waved a hand around the room. “Like this. Where are we?”

Ren paced the length of the clear balcony doors, more angry now. “Where do you think we are? We’re home. Don’t insult me.”

He seemed to believe that Hux was picking a fight with him. Hux was growing more angry himself. It shouldn't have been this difficult to prove himself to Ren. “I’m not… trying anything!” Hux’s voice rose, and he stepped closer. “Certainly you can sense that I’m sincere about this? That I’m confused?”

Ren stopped pacing, and finally looked over at Hux, eyes glittering, face half in shadow.  Hux couldn't make out his expression, but he sensed his thoughts stilling.

“Yeah. I can tell,” he answered quietly.

“Okay.” Hux nodded, gesturing to the sofa. They took their previous positions, though Hux moved closer to Ren, pressing their thighs together, hoping that touching him would somehow make everything easier.

“This is our suite. Why are we here? Tell me what this has to do with the Order.”

“The order? The order of what?”

Hux opened his mouth and closed it, not quite prepared for what would come next. Instead, he asked “How long have we lived here?”

Ren looked around, shrugging. “About ten years?”

“In the Scion Corridor? In the tallest and most garish building?”

“Right. Like you’d live anywhere else.”

“I _wanted_  to live here?” He rose, going back to the large window looking out over the New Republic. “In the Scion Corridor, or in Republic City?”

“Either?” Ren was confused, his thoughts so muddled that Hux could make out no distinct emotions. “Where else would we be, if we weren’t living in Republic City?”

“A Star Destroyer.”

He turned around just as Ren started laughing. Hux had never seen the like before - Ren doubled over, laughing because he found it _funny_  that they would live as they had. It wasn’t malicious, it wasn’t for show. Ren genuinely found the idea hilarious. Ren _never laughed_.

After nearly a minute, Ren rubbed his face. It was red, and he was smiling. He grinned up at Hux, waiting for him to say something about the joke. He was amused, happy.

Hux was miserable. Watching him laugh had been… hard. He wanted to see it again. He regretted that it had never really happened before.

Ren’s face fell. “You’re serious. You’d live on a Star Destroyer.” He seemed to consider this, studying Hux. “I guess if you had to live in space, a Star Destroyer would suit you. As long as it wasn’t one of the hulks.”

Hux let a corner of his mouth twitch up, amused himself despite the situation. “It wasn’t. It was finished to my father’s specifications when I was 22.”

“Brendol Hux?” Ren looked more animated at that, leaning forward, a kind of feral glee twining through his thoughts. “Did you find a lead on him? He’s building Star Destroyers?”

“A lead. Was I somehow fortunate enough to lose him? And you’re sure the circumstances weren’t contrived?”

“Hux,” his voice was flat, and all of his pleasure had drained away, replaced with something more careful, more like concern. “You haven’t seen your father in thirty years.”

“Since when?”

“Since we met,” Ren snapped, standing to pace again, disturbed. “Since Arkanis fell and he used you as a human shield to escape.”

Hux balked at that. Of all the things his father had done to him, there was never anything like _that_. His father valued children too much as the future, and had since before the Empire fell. It was the one genuine thing about his character, unvarying and reliable. He had been manipulated and abused at his father’s hand, and his father had certainly tried to set him back the older he got. But he would never have shielded himself with a child. Not even Armitage.

“When Arkanis was attacked,” he said slowly, “Rax sent someone to take my father and I. We left before Scaparous Port fell, or the Imperial Academy. We had warning.”

Ren stared at him, brows creased. “Then what happened?”

Hux swallowed. Explaining this to Ren was difficult. He realized, suddenly, that they'd never talked about this before. “We went to Jakku, and we were both there for the final battle. Rae Sloane took over the Imperial remnant, and we went to the Unknown Regions, Wild Space, to rendezvous with some sort of contingency fleet that the Emperor had sent ahead. It was… it didn’t go well. We lived on the old Star Destroyers. We recruited, we trained, we began administering to problems in the Unknown Regions when we could. It got better. We got better at it.” He gestured, glossing over the growth, the bad things. “You and I met in 22 ABY. You came with me a year later. Helped. After that, it went well.”

“What went well?”

“The First Order.” He turned, absently looking out the window to Republic City. “The Imperial remnant that turned into the First Order.”

He turned back, looking at Ren expectantly. Ren knew what he wanted, but didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to listen to Hux. He was deeply disturbed.

But he told Hux anyway.

“Your father was on Arkanis when the Republic overwhelmed the planetary defenses. He was inside the Imperial Academy, in his office with you. He wouldn’t surrender. The fight was legendary, he was doing things with children, they were acting…” he shook his head. “I don’t know about that.”

“I do.” Hux remembered those children, the ones that went through the first round of programming. It was appalling, the Republic would have been horrified. He would have been horrified, if he hadn’t been five at the time. “They came with me to Jakku.”

They had been the first that accepted his command. He still remembered all their names. Their conditioning had failed after a point, and they no longer accepted orders from anyone but the younger Hux. His father had them _failed_  after that, and altered the conditioning program to be less severe.

He hadn’t thought of them in a long time. It wasn’t a good memory. He didn’t want to talk about it with Ren, so he dismissed it.

Ren continued. “Those students, and the rest, all of them were captured there. When the Republic forces finally got to your father, he was… ranting, holding a blaster to your head. He pulled you out after him, eventually left you behind. You came back to Hanna City on Chandrila, where the government was based at the time, and they kept you like they did his other students. Even though you weren’t as dangerous as they were. But you wouldn’t talk.”

Hux wrinkled his nose. “No, I wasn’t as dangerous. He never would have given me the conditioning that they had. It was… combat training.” Physicality had never been the way Hux was dangerous, which had been detrimental throughout his childhood. But he could give orders, even at five.

Ren looked at him, a little pityingly. Their life here - his life here - was beginning to make a kind of awful sense. He had never been a member of the Order.

Which was. Impossible. That was who he was. Who he had always been, even without Ren. He’d certainly fled it enough times by now, disappointed by its lack of progress, its management, the fact his father was still alive. He’d lived outside of it for three years. But that had been with Phasma, and even then… every day, he’d thought about it. Used the skills he’d gained, thought about how he and Ren might enter it from the outside, or take it over.

And he’d… said that, at Ventu. That he could be happy even if they weren’t in the First Order together. He’d said it and meant it. That last version of Ren had been... difficult, and even if he’d refused to go back to the Order, Hux may have been content with any life that wasn’t trapped on what was no longer Starkiller. Part of him assumed he’d always be able to talk a reasonable Ren into joining the First Order again. But even if he couldn’t, he knew he could never again have the First Order without Ren.

But. Who was he, if there was no First Order? 

His stomach twisted. Even after everything he’d done to try and find Ren last time, the thought of not having the First Order in his life left him empty. Panicked. 

Ren sat down next to him, still staring. His thoughts were turning more towards Hux, less disturbed by the situation and more genuinely concerned. “Hux, you’re… I’ve never seen you-”

 _Scared_. He was panicked. He didn’t want Ren’s concern, he didn’t want Ren to notice. He cut him off. “What happened next?” Hux asked blithely, as if none of it mattered at all.

“In your life?” Ren looked amused, turning to face the room. “You were famous. The fall of Arkanis and the Imperial Academy was the biggest battle after the Empire fell. The Republic took a lot of prisoners, the Officers and Stormtroopers that didn’t take their own lives. There were even kids liberated from the academies. But because of what happened on Arkanis, you were the most famous of the ex-Imperials. Everyone wanted to know about you.”

Hux didn’t want to think about that. But there was something else that didn’t make sense. “The final battle was on Arkanis, and not Jakku?”

“Jakku?” Ren frowned, looking back to him. “Never heard of it. As far as I know, it was on Arkanis. You know more history, though.” Ren shrugged easily again, annoyed.

That meant Sloane kept her destroyer, Rax was still alive, and his father…

Where were they? Was the First Order out there, even now, and Hux… had been captured by the New Republic? Was some sort of famous ex-Imperial symbol?

Ridiculous. Laughable. “And what did five-year-old me do with this fame?” What did any five-year-old do with fame?

But in some ways, it was a real question. His mind was reeling from the implications of… not going through what he had. He would have been nothing without the trials he went through, odious as they were. They made him, taught him the lessons he needed to know. He would be someone else, forgettable, not capable of matching Ren.

But the suite with Ren said otherwise.

Ren frowned at him. “What’s wrong with you? You’re acting...” Ren glanced away again, running his fingers through his hair. “You aren’t yourself, and you are. Your thoughts are… scattered, divided.”

Hux raised an eyebrow. “Funny, lately I was thinking the same thing about you.” He waved a hand, dismissing it. “I’ll get to that later. Tell me what happened next.”

Ren continued in a flat voice, still looking away, fingers tugging at his hair. “There was a huge public outcry on Chandrila to have you released. You had to be kept with the other kids while they figured out if you were dangerous like them, but every day you were held captive made people more angry. There were protests, a lot of public pressure. My mother and the others finally decided to place you in a family. But since it was you, it couldn’t just be a regular family.”

“A _regular_  family,” Hux said drily. “I can’t imagine what that means in the New Republic. Were they afraid I’d kill them in their sleep and escape?”

Ren gave him another odd look, as if the joke had fallen flat. “No. You were five. They were worried about a family with Imperial sympathies adopting you and somehow getting you back to your father, or negotiating with what was left of the Empire.”

“So I was given another type of prison.”

Ren looked genuinely pained, as if Hux had said something extremely offensive. He wasn’t easy to offend, not really.

“Mon Mothma adopted you.”

The holo he’d seen of himself with the aging Mon Mothma flashed through his head. It was impossible. He tensed. “She didn’t. You’re toying with me, you know my memories are gone, and you're lying, trying to make me believe-”

Suddenly, Hux remembered that first time he’d woken up without Ren. It felt like… a different time, he’d been a different person. And even that person hadn’t believed that Ren had altered his memories. Not really. Because Ren would never do that.

Accusing him of lying about the past wasn’t as terrible as accusing him of altering his memories, but it still felt bad, after everything he’d been through.

None of it seemed to affect Ren, however. He was upset again, agitated, but not by that. He stared at Hux, fixing him with a glare. “I didn’t make it up! She was your mom. You wouldn’t forget that.”

Hux stood. It was impossible. There was simply no version of reality where that could be the case. Nothing that even the powers of Ventu could do to make it true. He refused to believe it. He refused-

“Hux!” Ren nearly shouted, surging up next to him. He grabbed Hux’s shoulders and squeezed hard, spinning him so that they were face to face.

Hux was furious, and didn’t know why, or what to do with that, or how to calm down. He wasn’t angry at Ren, but Ren was the only one here. He clamped his jaw shut, clenching the muscles tight enough to ache, and simply stared at him. Ren was angry too, but more directly at Hux.

“Hux, don’t…” Ren shook his head, closed his eyes, did another one of those condescending calming meditations, as if Hux was being _unreasonable_. Hux wanted to slap him.

“Okay. You aren’t going to believe me. But you can’t just pretend it didn’t happen.”

Hux would have loved to never speak of it again. He could have done it easily. But instead of leaving it, Ren crossed to the large holoset that dominated the room. He activated it, typed a few quick searches, then brought up a news story in High Galactic, turning to Hux and gesturing impatiently.

Featured prominently was Mon Mothma, older but not yet elderly, holding the hand of a stiff, clearly uncomfortable six-year-old Armitage Hux. He was wearing a light gray tunic and shorts. It was a formal holo, but Hux recognized the tells he hadn’t yet learned to suppress so young - he was standing at military attention, but too tense, with a flush high on his cheeks. He was keeping his expression neutral (easy enough for a child to maintain in a holo), but he was nervous, and trying hard not to show it.

Mon Mothma, in her white ceremonial robes and her distinctive medal, was the picture of graceful and easy. She was smiling beatifically and kneeling, one hand holding Hux’s, the other around his stiff shoulders.

Hux was overwhelmed, turning to Ren, speechless for a moment.

“Aurebesh.” He managed, gesturing to the display. “Turn it to something readable.”

“Readable?”

Hux put a hand over his mouth, not really wanting to turn and read the article, not wanting to see the holo again. “I can’t read High Galactic.”

“It’s just-”

“It’s-” He had nearly shouted the interruption, not wanting to have a fight about it. But he realized he couldn’t call it Republican garbage. Apparently he was now a son of the Republic. A very intimate son.

“I can’t read it,” he finished sullenly, turning back to the screen rather than confronting Ren about this detail.

He could feel Ren’s amusement, even though the implication seemed horrifying to him. At least Ren was disturbed enough not to make any comments about illiteracy. Ren silently switched the text, and Hux read the headline.

_YOUNG ARMITAGE NOW A MEMBER OF THE CHANCELLOR’S HOUSEHOLD_

_ARMITAGE HUX, 6, the famous hostage of his father the Imperial COMMANDANT BRENDOL HUX, found a home in the New Republic today after months of captivity. CHANCELLOR MON MOTHMA announced this morning that she would adopt and raise Armitage as her own son, citing numerous concerns about young Armitage’s safety for both the adoption and the infamous prison sentence the child was serving._

_Armitage, still recovering from the incident that occurred when Arkanis Academy was reclaimed over six months ago, remains silent, unwilling or unable to speak. Mon Mothma’s enthusiasm, however, was contagious._

_“Though many kind citizens of Chandrila offered to take Armitage into their families, when it came time to make the decision, I realized Armitage had become a part of my life. I grew to love him in the months we shared as he recovered from his ordeal. I want to continue to help him grow and learn, and I couldn’t be more excited.”_

Hux sighed, pushing a hand through his hair. As upsetting, as _impossible_  as this was, it was obviously reality, just as much as all the other unbelievable things Hux had seen. It was just one more, something that went just a bit farther. He'd endured worse.

_Not this. Not being Mon Mothma’s son. And here, he had endured none of what he had in the Order._

The last thing, he promised himself. It was the last thing he would have to get used to, the last awful twist his life would take. He would do this. He was staying here this time, with Ren. Mon Mothma had to be dead now, so he at least wouldn't have to play the part of her son.

He turned from the holoset to Ren, who was radiating a kind of surly concern, looking angry but also worried. Ren reached past him, tapping the screen again, and a holo of Mon Mothma appeared, giving a speech with Hux at her side, age eight.

“The Republic continues to grow, and it’s through the efforts-”

Hux slammed his palm into the screen, staring at the blank wall for a moment before turning back to Ren.

“Can you read my thoughts?”

“No. You’re… disorganized.” Ren’s face shifted, more genuinely worried. “And overwhelmed. By your mother. There’s something wrong with you.”

“ _She’s not my mother_ ,” Hux hissed reflexively, his fingers curling around the edges of the holoscreen. _His mother._ Neither he nor anyone else in the First Order had much use for parents. Raising children happened as a group. Few were as close as Hux and his father were, and he envied the others. He’d certainly never wanted a mother.

“She’s your mother,” Ren said carefully. “She’s-”

“ _She’s Mon Mothma,_ ” Hux shouted, unable to control himself. He should play along. He shouldn't take this so poorly. But. Really. “What does that make me? Armitage Mothma?”

Ren’s face drew into something more genuinely worried. “No. She didn’t change your name when she adopted you. You liked going by Hux, because it made everyone remember what happened to you and you liked the attention.”

Hux almost laughed, because yes, he would have loved that kind of infamy.

But. He still wouldn’t have been as famous as Ben Solo. Whose name they erased together, back in the Order, something that hadn’t happened here. His stomach turned again. The revelations were coming one after another, even worse now.

“What’s your name?”

Ren stepped forward, angry again, dismissive. “You know my name.”

Hux shook his head. Ren leaned in, voice low, his eyes boring into Hux. “Say it. You said it last night.”

Hux let his eyelids flicker in a tell that he’d eliminated years ago. He was relieved. Immensely. “Ren. Kylo Ren.”

Ren’s hand came up to the side of Hux’s head, and Hux jerked away, the memories of the mistreatment he’d had at the touch of Ren and Snoke coming unbidden. When Ren pulled his hand back as if burned, Hux grabbed it, examining the scars around his left hand and wrist. His lightsaber scars, the wounds he'd earned from the unstable crossguard on the saber he'd rebuilt.

“You gave me your focusing crystal again.” He kept one hand on Ren’s wrist, and touched the other to his chest, where the crystal sat beneath his robe.

“Hux, I gave it to you when-”

“I’m struggling with this, Ren. I woke up this morning, and… you know that I’m different.” He looked into Ren’s eyes, the sense of displacement, the wrongness of all this, still tangled in his thoughts, unable to be dismissed. “You know that, right? You can tell.”

Ren’s eyes fell, and he was silent several moments, obviously unwilling to comment on that.

“I know you can sense that, and that you know I’m not lying to you. But you have to listen to me. My memories are different. In mine, we were together, but. We weren’t this. I wasn’t this.”

“You lost your memories?” Ren met his eyes again, and Hux could sense the relief, excitement, the neatness of such an easy explanation. “Do you need a droid-”

“No. I haven’t lost them. This keeps happening. But it’s over now.” He dropped Ren’s hand.

“ _What’s_  over?” Ren sounded frustrated, and was beginning to shout. “If you’re sick, we can have the med droid look at you. If you’re not, why did you miss your meetings?”

“Because I didn’t know I had any.” Even as it came out, he realized it sounded as ridiculous to Ren as it did to himself. Of course he had meetings.

“Hux.” Ren pushed a hand through his hair, closing his eyes. “Have the droid look at you.”

Hux glowered. He wasn’t ill, but he also didn’t want to fight Ren right now. The exam would prove he wasn’t ill, and he needed certainty about something. “Fine. Call the droid in.”

Ren did, using the High Galactic controls in the holoset, punching the command harder than necessary. The waited in awkward silence, both standing, until droid appeared a moment later. Hux sat on the couch, glaring at Ren as the 2-1B med droid poked and prodded him. Ren glared back.

“Where did we even get this ancient scrap heap?” Hux asked, frustrated, as the droid took yet another blood sample. They’d had 2-1Bs on the _Eclipse_ , scavenged from some forgotten corner of Wild Space, and Hux hated them. They’d all been replaced with proprietary First Order tech almost a decade ago.

“You bought that! You said that newer tech was too shoddy, and that human biology hasn’t changed.”

Hux looked back to where the droid was taking his blood pressure. It sounded like something he would say, but he couldn’t imagine standing up for the 2-1Bs. He’d been the one to push for scrapping them instead of leaving them for emergency purposes. They didn’t have emergencies like that anymore.

The droid gave him a clean bill of health and tottered off noisily, its servos whirring loudly as it exited the room. Hux rubbed his sore, abused arms.

“Happy? There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“Hux. You woke up without your memory.”

He glanced in the direction of his office, and wondered if Ren could simply give him the memories - a whole lifetime of the things they’d shared together, in this place where he kept holos on his desk.

He tightened the belt of his robe, standing abruptly, angry with himself. What if they were more real than his own? What would happen when he completely erased his old life, the good with the bad?

“I have memories. Just not the right ones.” He grabbed Ren’s wrist again, brushing his fingertips against the side of his head. “Take a look. Check for the ones you think are there.”

Ren hesitated, studying Hux, then began pulling his hand back. “No.”

Hux tightened his grip, bringing it to the side of his head again, pushing his face into Ren’s palm. “Do it.”

Ren yanked his wrist back. “Hux. There’s something wrong with you. We should…” He glanced around, agitated, and began to pace. He muttered under his breath. “We should go to a specialist. You won’t be able to meet with Pheren tomorrow, we’ll have to reschedule. _You’ll_  have to reschedule.”

Hux had no idea who Pheren was. He also hated the idea of Ren managing his schedule, after all the arguments they’d had about Ren’s over the years. “Give me my schedule. Switch my pad to Aurebesh, and I’ll look through the files on Pheren. I’ll do it.” Would he have kept his objectives in his own files? Likely not. “Tell me what I want from the meeting.”

Ren paused, his expression and thoughts in complete shock. Hux realized belatedly the cancellation was for the specialist, not because Hux was unprepared. “You don’t remember Pheren?”

“Ren. This is growing tedious. No, I don’t remember Pheren. I don’t remember anything about-” He stopped himself, kept his anger in check. It wasn’t Ren’s fault. No sane person would believe Hux's story.

“You can’t meet with Pheren if you don’t know- You don’t know them, you won’t know what you need to say.”

“I know perfectly well how to-”

“No. It won’t work. I’ll have to come with you. I can tell you what to do.”

Hux gave himself a moment to swallow what he wanted to say, which was about how insulting it was to take cues from Ren during a business meeting. It would have started a fight. “Ren. I don’t have the right memories. I have sufficient training. I can _read_  people.”

Ren slowed, stopped. Visibly came to some sort of decision. “I’ll just have the meeting with Pheren rescheduled. I’ll take you to a specialist.”

“That’s pointless, there’s no specialist that can treat me,” Hux said firmly. “Did you really think I would agree to that?”

Ren mouth turned down. “No.”

There was something else he dreaded to ask, a fear that repeated through his thoughts over and over as Ren paced, looked angry, offered advice, _worried_  abut him. He made his voice steady, so the question came out evenly. “Do I seem so unlike myself?”

“No. You're acting normal, it's just-” Ren waved, frustrated.

“Then. Simply let me read my own notes for the meeting-” Hux began walking to his office, tightening the belt of his robe again. Having decided what to do tomorrow, he suddenly felt more positive. Researching for a meeting was something purposeful, it would help settle his thoughts. The more he learned, and the sooner he acclimated himself to this life, the less he would feel like a stranger in his own skin.

“Wait,” Ren called to his back, his thoughts hesitant.

“What? Am I not allowed to read my own files now?”

“No, it’s just. You can’t do it now. We have to-” He glanced down, then back up, a tell that he was trying to avoid something. “We have to leave soon. And you need to change.”

Hux frowned. “Do we have an appointment tonight? Together?”

Ren stared at him, his face the kind of intentional blank that always made Hux suspicious. His thoughts were suddenly masked.

“Yeah, I guess. You don’t remember what it is?”

“No. I don’t remember anything. Ren. Explaining this over and over again is tedious. _Pretend that I don’t-_ ”

“Fine,” Ren cut him off, annoyed. “Then yes, we have an appointment. You need to get dressed. And-” He looked down again. “I want to stop somewhere before that, I think.”

Hux’s eyes narrowed. “What appointment? Shouldn’t I research who we’re meeting beforehand?”

“No. I’ll tell you what to say. It’s not a business meeting.” He glanced at Hux, then down again. “Personal,” he added sullenly.

Hux’s eyebrows went up. “A social appointment?”

“Yes.”

Did he and Ren have friends here? Or was this the kind of social appointment that was a business obligation in disguise?

“You don’t need to tell me what to say,” Hux said, walking back across the giant main room to the bedroom. “I told you, I can learn myself.” He glanced over his shoulder. “But I won’t ruin anything by saying the wrong thing tonight?”

Ren snorted. “No. You can’t make things any worse.”

Cryptic. But that sounded like the kind of social engagement Hux was used to. Painful. Awkward.

He walked through the bedroom and into the walk-in closet. Ren followed him, stopping at the closet door and leaning on the frame. Hux’s eyes moved impatiently over the half of the closet that was clearly his clothing, all of it unfamiliar. He ordered himself to just choose something, to be calm. It was all fairly formal-looking by New Republic standards, and anything would do.

But none of it was his uniform. He turned to Ren, furious. “What am I supposed to wear?”

“What would you normally wear?”

“A uniform.” Ren was amused by Hux’s temper, which made everything worse. But it seemed like he was beginning to accept that Hux’s memories truly were different, which was… something.

Ren continued. “Olliv would be thrilled to hear that.”

“Who is Olliv?”

“Your tailor.”

“I have a _tailor_?”

Ren seemed even more amused, and his posture relaxed. “You’re particular. You hired him as soon as you could afford it.”

“And he chooses all of this for me?” Hux turned back, yanking an outfit out at random, a knee-length tunic.

“No. You always turn down his suggestions. You picked all this yourself. Olliv fits them to you. He hates you, but you pay him too well to quit. He says everything you wear is like a terrible throwback uniform, and that your time at the Imperial Academy ruined you.”

Hux turned to glare at Ren. “He says that to me?”

“No. He says that to me. I agree with him.”

“Ren.” He closed his eyes, turning back to the racks. “He’s wrong. None of these are proper uniforms.”

“Do you want me to pick something?”

It was obviously derisive, and Hux hated it. He couldn’t tell if Ren was trying to prod him into admitting his memory loss wasn’t complete, or just trying to start a fight. Either way, he was far too pleased with himself. Hux turned back to the clothing, furious, scanning it again.

He couldn’t do it.

“Yes, just choose something,” he admitted finally, exhaling. “Do it, and we’ll leave. Tell me about why we're there on the way.” He pushed past Ren again to exit the closet, pulling off the robe and tossing it onto the bed next to him. He waited, and Ren emerged a moment later, a smug look on his face, the outfit he’d chosen resembling a gray version of his usual uniform, a pair of knee-high boots in his other hand.

Hux took it and looked it over. The tunic was long and had a wide matching belt. That would feel normal enough. Hux nodded, then looked past Ren into the closet.

“Where are my briefs?”

Ren frowned. “Briefs?”

Hux’s eyes snapped back to his. “My socks and underwear.”

“Your socks are in your boots, your undershirt is on the hangar with the tunic.”

“My briefs, Ren. Where are my underwear?”

“What are you talking about?”

Hux glared at him, searching his thoughts. Ren was genuinely confused, annoyed.

“You’re not joking.”

“Joking about _what_?”

Hux sighed, but bit back his comment about the New Republic. He resigned himself to wearing pants without underwear to a meeting, wondering if the other party would know he was Republican and went bare underneath.

Maybe they were Republican too. Did none of them wear underwear? Was that a Republican thing? Something that Hux would have to live with now, that no one he met would be wearing underwear?

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

  
Ren summoned one of the most ridiculous luxury transports Hux had ever seen - the interior had a bar and refreshments set into a ring-shaped section of seats. There was no driver or pilot, not even a droid, just a routine that Ren prepped on his holopad before they got in.

“Was it necessary to call the most expensive transport in the city?”

Ren gave him the kind of incredulous look that was becoming too familiar. “This is our transport. We could hire one, but-”

“We _own_  this? Why?” Hux poked around in a cabinet beneath a small gray table, coming up with a tiny bottle of Corellian brandy. He cracked the small seal and downed the whole thing. He hated the taste, and it burned all the way down, but he needed it.

Ren frowned at him, plucking the bottle from between his fingers. “We use it to host. Our guests expect a certain level of success. You picked it out.”

Hux, again, didn’t know what to do with the information about his New Republic tastes, so he ignored it. “So am I not much of a drinker here, either?”

Ren snorted, staring out the window, twirling the empty bottle delicately between his fingers. “You don’t want to go to the meeting smelling like you’ve been drinking.”

Hux wrinkled his nose. “Who’s going to get close enough to me to tell? Do we do some sort of Republican greeting custom that I should know about?”

Ren turned from the window, staring at him, once again disturbed by the question. Hux hated that he was so _different_  than what Ren was expecting, and that it mattered so much to him. “If I couldn’t read your thoughts, I’d believe you were putting on an act.” He turned back to the window, still sulking. “No, you just don’t want to be drunk.”

Hux wasn’t a heavy drinker, and didn’t usually drink at all if he was with anyone but Ren. Ren’s advice was probably good, but he resented that Ren was giving him such basic instructions. He turned and stared out his own window.

He was rather more familiar with Republic City than he ever wished to be. He had eradicated it, and the strangeness of the Hosnian System's continued existence had lessened as he kept waking up in life after life. But being here always felt wrong, as if the planet somehow knew he was an enemy and would kill him at any moment. His presence here was profane, though none but Hux would ever know why.

But he was here now, and he would stay with Ren this time, no matter what that meant. He could decide what to do about the First Order later. He was sure it existed in some form, though the New Republic was predictably clueless about it. If necessary, he might be able to reach out and take control with resources here. If he owned a penthouse suite in the Scion Corridor, he and Ren must have considerable funds at their disposal.

The transport stopped in front of the New Republic Senate building. Of course it did. Ren got out, and Hux followed. It was dark, the cloud cover masking the sunset and casting the the rain-drenched plaza in harsh artificial light. It was deserted, the only sounds the roar of speeder traffic overhead and the patter of rain as it came down steadily around them. He scowled, feeling the water soak his hair and clothing, letting himself get drenched yet again. There was clearly no shortage of water in Republic City.

He stared steadily at the Senate Building and walked slowly down the winding path through the park, still lush and green. He'd never seen it any other way. He wondered if there were seasons on Hosnian Prime, or if the plants were kept the same year-round.

“Is our meeting in the Senate?”

“No.”

When Ren didn’t elaborate, Hux exhaled sharply, biting back a retort in consideration of Ren’s strange mood, which was still sulky and discontented. He wished there was something he could do to please Ren. Not picking a fight was a gift that Ren would not appreciate.

“Ren, I don’t care for this place.” He thought of all the meetings with Leia Organa, and how he’d outright begged her for help finding Ren last time. “If we don’t have a meeting here, must we wander around this park in the rain?”

Ren glanced over his shoulder, but remained silent and sullen, leading Hux through the empty park, past the benches and forks in the path and the deserted, water-logged play areas and flower beds. When they reached the front of the Republic Senate building, Ren stopped, looking back at Hux and gesturing up with one hand.

“Look familiar?”

Hux stepped forward, recognizing a new monumental statue at the foot of the main staircase. Mon Mothma as she looked when she was young, the Chandrilan representative in the former Republic’s Senate. The main entrance had previously been flanked by statues of Bail and Breha Organa on one side and Mon Mothma to the other - currently, Bail and Breha flanked the entrance, and Mon Mothma stood forward, front and center, larger than the other two, impossible to miss as one entered the building. She had been captured with a placid look on her face, hands outstretched, currently filled with a variety of violet and white flowers that were dripping water. The rain made the white stone glisten under the bright park lamps. At her feet was a High Galactic inscription, large, presumably her name, along with a date of death in 25 ABY. Below that, written in both Aurebesh and High Galactic, was a quote:

_“Fight for what you believe in, and you will succeed. The fight may be long and difficult, but let hope sustain you, and may you find peace of mind and comfort at the end of your journey."_

Hux inhaled sharply. Ren seemed to register his surprise, and his expression and thoughts grew more hopeful.

“Do you remember that speech?”

Hux opened his mouth, knowing that Ren would smile, full and genuine, if he said yes. But he didn’t. He was frustrated. He felt _wrong_ , and it wasn't a feeling he was used to, especially with Ren. He saw Ren's expression fall, felt the hope extinguish in his thoughts.

“I don’t remember the speech, no. I was-”

He was never a fan of Mon Mothma. Reading the quote they had chosen to memorialize her, he was annoyed with how the cheap sentiment resonated with him. _Fight for what you believe in, and you will succeed._

“Do you remember how we met?”

Immediately, Ren turned hostile, his body tensing and his emotions abruptly masked from Hux. He scrambled to explain himself. “It’s not- I _remember_ , Ren, but all of this is. It’s different.” When Ren’s glare didn’t abate, Hux continued, unable to reign in his own temper or control the volume of his voice.

“I’ll tell you what I remember. It was there, next to Bail Organa. Except Bail stood next to Breha, and Mon Mothma was smaller, on the other side of the main entrance. I’d come here from Wild Space before my first posting to meet you, because I-” He felt his face heat, even as the rain fell on his cheeks, and he forced himself to continue. “Because I _wanted_  you, I was obsessed with you, and I badly wanted to meet you before my first posting, and I told myself it was for the good of the Order, but it wasn’t, it was a personal indulgence, and I’d… I’d never done anything like that before, left the ship, gone to Republican space-”

Hux was humiliated, babbling, could feel his heart hammering in his chest. He'd rarely said anything so personal, not even to Ren. But if this would clear things up between them, he would do it. He didn’t let himself think about the words, simply pushed the personal mess out of his mouth as fast as he could.

“And I stood there, next to Bail, to catch you when you left the Senate. But you found me instead, and we… started to talk, and we went to that bench. And we kissed.” Hux closed his eyes, felt himself tensing up. This was difficult, here in the rain that he'd avoided on the Star Destroyers for so long and in front of _his mother Mon Mothma_ , but he’d lost Ren enough, and he’d never bothered to tell him this before. Admitting his feelings while clutching each other in bed was one thing. This was another, and Ren deserved it. 

“I’ve thought of you every day since then, for fourteen years. What we did in this park, it was. It was _permanent_. Everything I’ve done, all my… victories, achievements, since then. They were done with you.” He opened his eyes, still humiliated, but forced himself to meet Ren’s gaze. “This thing that’s happened to me. I took you for granted. But I know now. And I can tell you. What you are to me. It's-”

At this, he did stop. He felt the breath leave his lungs. Ren stared at him. This was hard. He didn't have the words.

"The good things. All of it was with you or because of you, and I never. Saw it, or appreciated it before. And, I'm. I'm sorry, that I wasn't that for you."

Ren’s reaction to all this was a slackening of expression. Hux had robbed him of comebacks, which was rare. Ren would have never let him live this down before, regardless of how badly he wanted to hear it (very badly - Hux knew he’d been stingy with his feelings).

When the awkward silence continued to play out between them, Hux swallowed, digging his nails into his palms. Ren was still blocking his thoughts, and Hux hated it, had had enough of Ren not being in his head.

“Is this not… Are we not together here?”

Fear shot through Hux before he reminded himself that it couldn’t be true, because they obviously slept together. Ren’s expression went strange, hurt, then he let his thoughts free again, fondness and frustration flooding Hux’s head.

“Hux. You're the only one who could ever say I was _good_."

Hux felt himself grin. "You're not, and never were." 

Ren smiled for a moment before his expression darkened again. "Hux. None of that happened, I have no idea what you’re talking about. But yeah, we’re married.” Ren took a step closer, putting a hand out, dropping it, pushing his rain-slicked hair off his face. “It’s okay, I believe you. I thought you were trying to get out of tonight. But I think you’re sick.” He frowned, and put his fingers to Hux’s temple.

Thinking of the Senator, the bizarre exile priest, Hux still winced, couldn’t help it. Ren pulled his hand away again. They were silent, awkward, staring at each other, both feeling slightly panicked. It was raining, and he was soaked, and Hux was thinking about those fucking outdoor drills again. He couldn’t stand it, and didn’t want Ren asking about it again.

He turned to the statue of Mon Mothma, taking her in again. “She was really a parent to me?”

Ren shrugged. “Yes. You… still don't remember her? At all?”

Well.  He did.  He’d seen Mon Mothma in person once, from afar, just before she died. He knew of her, of course, one of the rebels who worked best from inside a government. A formidable leader, even-handed, and possibly possessing a stronger will than even Leia Organa. Even he had to acknowledge her achievements were impressive. She was one of the only Senators who had openly opposed Palpatine, first when he was a Chancellor, then as Emperor. She’d also built her ideal government from scratch, and led it as the Chancellor. She'd had enough power to make the laughable decision to disband the Republic military, and enforce it.

He envied her. It hadn’t worked that way for him. But she was much older, and had different experiences. Well.

“No, not like this. I can’t imagine that we would have much in common.”

At that, Ren laughed again, another genuine laugh, one that transformed his face into something far less grim. It was quick, but in its wake was the smile that Hux had envied from the holo in the office. His chest tightened.

“You never agreed on anything. I don't know how you could stand to pick fights with her.” His smile fell a bit, though it stayed in the corners of his eyes. “Not that either of us know anything about making our mothers happy. But you did love her.”

Hux was nearly speechless. It was the laughter, which was so incredibly rare, that made him finally process something Ren had said earlier.

“You and I are… married, in the New Republic.”

The smile came back, just a hint of it. “Yeah. Ten years. You don’t remember.” The last was said in a flat tone, disappointment flooding his thoughts. He put a hand out. “Come on, we’re going to be late.”

Hux stared at Ren’s proffered hand, but took it, allowing himself to be led back through the pouring rain and darkness and awful artificial light.

Married. Ren had brought it up only once, on the _Finalizer_ , about two years after he’d joined the Order.

 

 

_“What are you doing today?”_

_“The Ferren delegation is coming aboard. This will be our last negotiation before we declare war. Which is still too expensive. I’m hoping to prevent it.”_

_Ren was in bed, still naked, watching Hux pull on his dress uniform. Hux hated wearing it, there were too many pieces - it was light gray, and would smudge easily, so it was terrible for banquets. There were braids and epaulets and a handful of medals, topped off with a ridiculous brimmed hat. The pants were long and loose, coming down over his boots, and he hated the way they felt as he walked._

_“Are you preventing a war with your good looks? You don’t do diplomacy.”_

_Hux gave him a dry look over his shoulder before turning back to the mirror, trying to wrap one of the gold braids just so._

_“No, but having a general sitting in on the talks shows our sincerity. Both for our offer of peace and the threat of war.”_

_“Are you better at the threat?”_

_Hux smirked. “I must be better at the good looks, you said so yourself.”_

_Ren was silent as Hux tried to arrange the belt without covering anything. He spoke up after a moment._

_“I’ve been here for two years, and I still can’t figure it out. How do people get married?”_

_“Married? I’ve heard of that before…” Hux’s mind was only half on the conversation as he eyed the case of medals he had to put somewhere. What was the point of that?_

_“People don’t get married here?”_

_“I don’t think so. Isn’t that a New Republic ceremony for couples? The Order doesn’t do that, no.”_

_“But don’t you have a way for two people to be recognized as a couple?”_

_The epaulet at his shoulder slipped, and Hux cursed. “What more recognition does a couple need? If they say they’re a couple, they’re a couple. If they aren’t anymore, they move to different quarters. It’s as simple as that. I think I've heard of some couples taking leave together to do various planetside ceremonies and rituals together. What is it like in the New Republic?” He cursed again, grabbing the case of medals and turning around, thrusting it at Ren. “Here. Do this. I don’t have the patience.” He gestured to the light gray expanse of his chest. “Put them on however you like.”_

_Ren rose, still completely naked, and walked across the room, studying the case of medals with bright-eyed interest. “What are these for?”_

_“Nothing. They’re part of the dress uniform. If you have a dress uniform, you have some combination of these to accent it.”_

_He looked betrayed. “They’re fake?”_

_“Make up the reasons, then they’ll be real enough. Certainly I’ve done enough to earn them.”_

_Ren huffed, setting the case on a stand next to the mirror and pulling out a round brown pin, examining it before selecting a spot near Hux’s collar. He kept his eyes down as he continued his earlier explanation._

_“When people get married in the New Republic, it’s… an event. A ceremony that everyone is invited to. It’s a promise between the couple, and a way to announce that they plan on sharing the rest of their lives. A way to publically announce that they love each other. There’s presents, a party… they celebrate the day every year after that, too.”_

_Hux watched his fingers, surprisingly deft, as he clipped another medal into place. “Isn’t that a little ostentatious, letting everyone know the status of your relationship? That’s something between the two of them. Why should it matter to others?”_

_Ren absently tucked a lock of dark hair behind his ear, which did nothing to improve it - he had the worst bedhead, despite the fact they hadn’t done anything but sleep the night before. “It’s the vow of love that’s important, that you’ll share the rest of your life together. Then everyone knows. And you made the promise.”_

_“Don’t couples break up in the New Republic?”_

_“Well, yeah, they have divorces for that.” Ren looked up into Hux’s eyes, then back down, withdrawing another medal._

_Hux sighed, pulling at his cuffs, hating the way the jacket fit him. But the contrast between his overly dressed state and Ren’s nudity amused him, and he smiled, considering Ren's explanation._

_“Are you asking me to marry you, Ren? Is this how it’s done?”_

_Ren scowled, but he touched Hux’s chest, just where his ID tags sat below the layers of jacket and undershirt. “No. It’s… a whole thing, with dinner and a date, and the mood has to be right. That’s how couples ask each other if they want to get married.”_

_Ren's tone was light, but his thoughts were embarrassed, bordering on humiliated. Apparently Hux had guessed correctly about Ren wanting to marry him. Ren was so rarely humiliated, and had taken such obvious pains to explain everything, that Hux was unusually charmed. He removed one of his white dress gloves, running his fingers through the tangled mess of Ren’s hair, and decided to take pity on him._

_“Well. We don’t date, we just do this.” He gestured to the room with his other hand. “But if it was important to you Ren, I’d say yes. And I wouldn’t divorce you. There isn’t anyone else I’d tolerate.”_

_Ren glanced briefly up, but couldn't hold Hux's gaze, his face very red. He seemed unsure what to do with his hands, so he rested them on Hux’s waist. “_ Tolerate. _There isn’t anyone else who’d tolerate you. This is-”_

_Whatever it was, Ren was growing belligerent, so Hux leaned forward and kissed him. Ren’s embarrassment turned to fondness, and Hux squeezed the back of his neck, pulling back._

_“I’m going to be late.” He put his hat on, taking one last look in the mirror. Ren had done an excellent job with the medals, much better than Hux would have. He turned to face him, smirking slightly._

_“How do I look?”_

_Ren looked lost, and instead of answering, leaned forward to kiss Hux again. It was a good kiss, and Hux indulged in it longer than he should have. He broke the kiss, then spoke, his lips just above Ren's._

_“I don’t care to look that good for the delegates. It causes… problems.”_

_Ren turned his face and smirked, and Hux felt it against his cheek along with the unshaven roughness of Ren's face. “Fuck you, Hux. Go to your meeting.”_

_Hux only allowed himself a faint smile, stepping back and leaving the room in a good mood._

 

 

“What was our marriage like?” Hux asked as they made their way back to the vehicle, the Mon Mothma memorial now at their backs.

Ren looked at him sidelong. “You really did forget everything. All of it.”

“ _Ren_.”

Hux pushed his hair back. The rain had soaked it, the product was gone, and his outfit was ruined. He thought of Arkanis again, how upset he’d been to ruin his uniform, and pushed his annoyance back down. “I remember everything. This rain… I was wallowing earlier, before you got back." He paused, not really wanting to discuss his bad memories, but he wondered if they were the same. "I might have my memories of Arkanis. Before the war. Did I tell you about it?”

Ren grunted. “Just that it rained a lot, and they made you exercise outdoors.” He glanced briefly to Hux, his emotions still hidden, then withdrew his pad. “I didn’t think about it. Give me a minute.”

Hux frowned, curious, but said nothing as they threaded their way through the park, Ren bent over the glowing screen of a datapad as they approached their transport. Incredibly, the rain stopped almost immediately, and the wind picked up, howling, as the cloud canopy dispersed and one of the large moons became visible.

He didn't make the connection at first, not until he caught sight of the smirk on Ren's face as he opened the door of the transport.  Then he froze, glancing back up to the sky, leaning into the buffeting wind and staring at Ren in disbelief. “You have control of the weather in Hosnian City?”

“Planetwide.” Ren grinned, grabbing his hand and climbing into the transport, pulling Hux in after him.

“That’s impossible. Why would you have access to that?”

“Technically, you have access to it.” He hummed, punching another command into the datapad. The transport rose seamlessly into the streams of traffic as Hux groped for words, some reason that he would have control of the weather on Hosnian Prime.  That seemed like a cruel joke. As he tried to frame any sort of response to this ridiculous show of power, something akin to a sonic began blowing on them, beginning to dry Hux's soaked hair and outfit. And, really, that was one luxury too many.

“I don’t want to take a _shower_. I want…” He trailed off. He didn’t know what he wanted. He wanted to stop feeling like this. Surprised, unprepared. A stranger. Predictably, Ren said nothing, only pulling open a panel that revealed a miniature vanity, complete with a comb and tubes labeled in High Galactic that were probably a version of his hair product made from some long-extinct species from the farthest corner of space. He scowled at Ren, who was entirely too smug, and began correcting his appearance.

As he considered during their silent speeder ride, he began to feel more optimistic. Things were different, but it wasn’t nearly as life-ending as he’d thought. As much as he'd thrived in it, he wondered how it would be to get away from the power struggles, deadly and otherwise, in the First Order. Whatever he was doing in the New Republic, it couldn’t be nearly as structured or severe as his old life. And he still had all those same skills, so he might be able to... do something, here.

His position with Ren was secure, which is what he had asked for on Ventu.

Ren poked around on his datapad as Hux tried to convince himself that all this was _good_. Hux refused to ask Ren what he was doing, which Ren clearly wanted him to do. Ren's needling insistence in his thoughts was more likely to provoke an insult, or argument, about whether Ren even knew what a datapad was for. Hux couldn't remember the last time he'd seen him with one, before all this started. Ren hated tech.

Finally, Ren broke the silence himself, clearly gleeful about whatever he was doing with the datapad. 

“More rain?” Sheets of water began pounding against the transport, invisible through the darkness of the opaque window. He turned to Ren. How like him, to toy with inconceivable power with the restraint of a child.

“Must you show off?”

Ren stowed the tech, entirely too pleased with himself. “I had to try. You've never let me touch the weather controls before."

"There's probably a good reason for that."

"I had to try. You would have stopped me, even if you were trying to fake something to get out of tonight. Now I'm sure you're not."

Hux shifted, passing an uncertain hand over his hair again. He hated how well the accommodations in the transport had cleaned him up. He also couldn't imagine why he would need an elaborate lie to avoid an engagement. Why wouldn't he simply decline? It made him uneasy.

“You think I'm trying to get out of the meeting? You told me you’d brief me on the way. If you want me to fake my way through this, I’ll have to know who we’re speaking to and what we want from them.”

Ren was even more amused. “I think you’ll know when we get there. It’s better this way.”

“You’re hoping to make a fool out of me.”

“Mmmm… not exactly.” Ren was smug, meaning that was exactly what he was doing. “More like… the person we’re meeting will enjoy it more than I will.”

Hux sighed, leaning across to straighten Ren's hair. Ren closed his eyes, and Hux took longer than necessary with it, running his fingers through it. It was dry, and Ren hadn't styled it, his hair falling naturally into the waves that had always looked so good on him. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to stomach much of that, Ren. I’m not used to being made a fool.”

“I know. And so does she.”

“She who?”

“You’ll see.”

Try as he might, verbally and by searching Ren’s thoughts, Hux could get nothing else out of him, and he spent the rest of the short trip sulking. They left the city, the buildings steadily deceasing in size and height into rows of neat identical houses, stretching out to the far edges of another cityscape, each one lit by its own artificial light that made them visible from the high lines of speeder traffic. It was difficult to conceive of how much power was being wasted, but Hux had also just taken a sonic shower in his clothes, from his luxury transport.

The transport stopped in front of one that looked the same as all the others, and Ren opened the door wordlessly and climbed out.

“Are we meeting a nice Hosnian family here for dinner?”

Ren looked back, expression gloomy. “Yes. We are.”

With no further hint, he walked up to the front door of the residence. Hux hurriedly followed, noting how odd their vehicle looked in the more modest residential area. He also noted how inefficient the residences were - they’d be able to fit more people planetside if these were stacked instead of spread out in individual low units.

Rather than knocking, Ren simply entered, laying his palm on a scanner and barging through the door. Hux, curious, followed wordlessly, excited despite himself by Ren’s rudeness.

They both stopped in the entryway when Leia Organa appeared. Hux hid his reaction, as always, but he couldn’t help noticing the difference between her dress and attitude in her own home. She leaned casually against the frame, arms crossed, body language and furious expression identical to Ren when he was trying to intimidate Hux. It worked, too, despite Organa being a foot shorter and significantly less broad. Her tunic was shorter, gray, and her pants were tighter than would have been proper in the Senate. She was also barefoot. Hux stared at that for a few moments longer than he should have before his gaze went back to her disapproving expression. Her hair was still carefully braided and styled, at least that much a princess at home.

“You two are late. Everyone's already here.” Organa’s gaze slid to Hux, sizing him up. “No excuses this time?”

“Hux was sick today. Had to cancel everything. Still is, actually. But I knew you wouldn’t believe that.”

Organa snorted. “He looks fine to me.”

“It’s my memory,” Hux offered loftily, hating that Ren had spoken for him. He settled on a simpler, easier-to-believe version of the truth. “I woke up without my memory this morning.”

Organa scrutinized him again, obviously not believing him. “I’m sure you did. But here you are, in my house.” She gestured, turning and walking back into the house. “Come on. The food’s getting cold.”

He followed Ren, glancing curiously around. The house seemed small inside, not much larger than their suite on the _Finalizer_. Where Hux’s rooms had always been decorated simply in gray, black, and chrome, this home was more open and Republican, done with white and beige, with landscape paintings on the wall. Hux’s gaze held on a meadow scene that could have come from hundreds of planets. He wondered how much traditional art was worth, and if this was some sign of wealth. There was no carpet, he noted, just a light-colored wood paneling. He and Ren were not invited to remove their boots, despite Organa’s bare feet.

The main room was small, with a few stuffed beige chairs and two windows hung with gauzy yellow curtains, reflecting the room back in the darkness outside. Several doors led elsewhere, and Hux followed Organa and Ren into a small dining area set with a table that was far too large for the space.

Realizing this was Organa's home had been enough of a shock that he had forgotten to anticipate anything else. So the grim sight of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo sitting silently together, staring at them, was more of a surprise than it should have been. Hux hid it once again, pausing only a moment before putting a hand to Ren’s back and forcibly guiding him to a seat.

Organa sat at the head of the table. Ren, contrary as always, positioned himself across from Han Solo, which left Hux sitting across from Skywalker and next to Organa. He took his seat uncomfortably, still hating the way Skywalker seemed to stare right through him. In all the years since he'd last seen the man, he'd still never met anyone else who could do the same.

He turned from Skywalker to Solo and nodded, muttering a simple greeting as he studied the older man. He looked the same as he had before - old, tired. Dressed just as poorly in a worn-out gray vest and a stained shirt, his hair tousled, his face unshaven. Solo nodded back, looking just as uncomfortable as Hux felt.

He reluctantly greeted Skywalker next, noting that Ren didn’t speak to either man. Skywalker nodded, but remained silent, continuing to bore into Hux with his unsettling blue eyes. He looked far older than he had in the Senate, and shabbier. His hair needed trimmed, and his gray beard was long enough that Hux found it disgusting. He was wearing a ratty belted tunic, looking worse than Solo. But unlike Solo, his clothing didn’t diminish him in the slightest. He still _felt_  dangerous. Hux was suddenly grateful that none of his searching for Ren had brought him face-to-face with the man until this moment.

After everyone was seated and Hux’s attempts at greetings finished, two small droids buzzed in to serve small bowls of soup. To Hux’s chagrin, it was the same spicy red soup with stiff noodles that he’d had before. He frowned into his bowl, then looked to Organa, not sure if silence or stilted conversation would be a worse way to pass the evening. For all that he was married to her son, it was obvious she still hated him.

He decided conversation would make it less obvious that he wasn't eating the soup. “Is tonight a special occasion?”

Everyone at the table paused, staring at him. Surprisingly, Skywalker was the one that answered him.

“It’s our birthday. Leia’s and mine.”

He continued to give Hux his piercing, uncomfortable stare. Hux stared right back, trying to cover his embarrassment.

“Birthday. Right. Your birthday.”

Skywalker stared for another moment, and Hux didn’t drop his gaze. “You have no idea what a birthday is.”

“ _What?_ ” Organa asked, in a flat voice.

“The kid knows what a birthday is,” Solo broke in. “We’ve even had parties for him before. It’s been awhile, but they were still birthdays.”

“He doesn’t know what a birthday is,” Skywalker insisted, staring at him.

Hux hated this. He had no way to deflect or defend himself, and he couldn’t simply insult Skywalker to change the subject. He tightened his grip on his soup spoon and ate a bite, willing himself to say something. The soup burned his mouth, and he swallowed quickly, following it with a sip of water.

“I know what a birthday is. It’s… the day you were born.” He nodded. “Congratulations.” He looked to Organa, then dropped his eyes to his soup again, hoping that his usual contribution to Skywalker dinner conversation was minimal. He groped in his memory for the significance of the Republican birthday - he had no idea, but he knew they marked it as an annual celebration. Some sort of party. He kept his face impassive, but he withered inside. It was another ceremony they had no use for in the Order. He would have to look up his own date of birth, and do the calculation to convert it from the old Imperial calendar.

“He seems to think that birthdays are… useless,” Skywalker said, amused.

“Uncle Luke,” Ren cut in sharply. “Stay out of his thoughts.”

Skywalker put his hands up. “He wasn’t keeping me out. Couldn’t resist.” He smiled, and his eyes twinkled just sightly as he looked over at Hux. “He really hates me, for some reason. Seems to think I’m his enemy.”

“You are,” Ren said sourly, eating his own soup.

“I thought he liked me.” Skywalker affected mock hurt, then picked up his spoon, taking a bite. Soup dribbled into his beard. It was repulsive. “He said before he liked me more than Han and Leia.”

 _Ren, please, for fuck’s sake, this is terrible. Don’t let them read my thoughts_ , Hux begged silently, hoping that Ren had some way to stop it.

 _I can stop it_ , he offered. _Luke was just being an asshole._  Amusement washed through his thoughts. _You do seem to really hate him_.

 _YOU HATE HIM_ , Hux corrected, nearly in tears. He took one more bite of his soup, hoping that it was a polite enough amount to push away.

“I’m afraid it’s true that I’ve lost all my memories,” he offered, glancing amiably around the table. This was one of the most surreal moments of his life, far worse than the usual mundane diplomatic niceties, or even the formal dinners with High Command that he’d suffered when he was younger. “I woke up this morning and can’t remember a thing. I missed my scheduled appointments.” He gestured to Ren. “He told me about Mon Mothma. I don’t remember her, either.”

The spoons stilled in their bowls again, all but Ren’s. Hux begged him silently to say something, and though he relished the moment, Ren continued.

“I took him to her memorial before we came here, and he told me a completely different story about how we met.” Ren’s gaze cut over to Organa, looking amused. “He asked me to tell him what happened. But I thought you should, since it’s your birthday.”

Organa looked delighted, pushing her own soup back. She gave Hux a stern look. “I’m going to embarrass you. This is the best birthday present you’ve ever given me.”

Hux stared back, not sure what response she wanted. “As you like.”

Organa took a sip of her water, looking over at Ren. “What does he remember?”

“Nothing.” Ren shrugged. “I showed him the speech Mon Mothma gave when she adopted him. He doesn’t remember any of it.”

“Poor Mon.” Organa shook her head. “You were a lot of trouble for her.”

Hux frowned. “When she adopted me?” As much as he hated the New Republic, he had probably hated the Imperial Academy more when he was five. And especially his father, if their parting had been a galactic incident (which, of course it was). Under those circumstances, he probably would have loved being taken away. He still remembered how excited he’d been to board the Star Destroyers and be away from his classes, though the chaos and his father’s conditioned students had frightened him.

“You wouldn’t talk,” Organa explained. “And it was so hard to find you a home when you were first rescued. There were protesters every day, letters and holocalls about you being in prison. And we knew you weren’t dangerous like the other children. Mon nearly had a rebellion on her hands over you.” She narrowed her eyes. “But you couldn’t be placed in just any family. There was a danger to the family that the Imperials would have you abducted or executed. And a danger to you that the family might be Imperial sympathizers and abduct you themselves. It took a long time to find a solution.”

Hux kept his thoughts to himself, but the New Republic’s care with the situation was ridiculous. He would have had any child causing such a controversy reconditioned, and released some props to satisfy the public outcry.

Ren laughed, clearly reading Hux’s thoughts. Hux ignored him. Organa scowled at Ren’s interruption, but continued.

“Once Mon realized she could adopt you herself, she was the happiest I’d ever seen her. It was always too dangerous for her to have her own family, doing what she did. You were as safe with her as the New Republic could make you, and she finally had a family of her own.”

A neat solution. Hux said nothing, watching another serving droid clear the table and bring in some sort of dark purple salad with heavy dressing. Hux poked at it again, not sure if he wanted to eat it, or hear about how excited Mon Mothma had been to raise him. The story didn’t really feel like it had happened to him. Organa would be disappointed if she thought he would be embarrassed.

Unlike the soup she’d barely touched, Organa consumed the salad with enthusiasm. As Hux watched her rapid neat bites, Ren provided an answer to his unspoken question.

_They all choose a course. The soup is Luke’s favorite, the salad Leia’s. My father chose the main course. The dessert is probably Alderaanian lace cake._

Hux poked politely at his salad and watched Organa attentively. She was the only one, aside from him, that hadn't slurped the soup like a barbarian or spilled it onto clothing. Hux secretly hoped for a lapse in etiquette, despite his disgust with the others, but she was a princess through and through, and her manners were impeccable. She continued the story between bites, politely dabbing at her mouth as she spoke.

“Having you at home really changed Mon. She worked less, and started going home more to spend time with you. But you wouldn’t talk to her, or anyone else. You hadn’t spoken a word since the soldiers rescued you. Not to eat or sleep, or to ask about the holoset, or for any of the private lessons she was giving you. When spending more time with you at home didn't help, she hoped getting you started at a regular school might, at someplace where you could spend time with kids your own age and come home to her in the evenings. But that didn’t work, either.”

Hux dropped his eyes. No doubt. They were punished for socializing at school. He would have been horrified by a day school in the New Republic.

“You went on like that for a year. Broke Mon’s heart. She pushed back against moving the capital to Hosnian Prime for a long time just because she was worried another move would be bad for you. But eventually, it went beyond her, and she had to take a trip to Republic City. She didn’t want to take you and upset your routine, so Han volunteered to watch you while she was gone.”

Hux’s gaze shifted to Han Solo as he took an experimental bite of the salad. The dressing was too sweet, and he decided to skip this course as well.

He’d only spoken to Han Solo once, and Ren had rarely spoken of him. Hux was under the impression he was gone a lot, or he and Leia Organa had had some sort of falling out. When Hux had last spoken to him, they’d been trying to get the better of each other, much like the last time he’d spoken to Organa, and perhaps even Skywalker. Now, Solo was taciturn, unwilling to take the conversational cue from Organa until she was practically glaring at him.

“Uh, right,” he said, looking back down into his salad. He hadn’t aged as well in this version of the New Republic, and looked nearly twenty years older than the Skywalkers seated next to him. Frail and old, he coughed, and then tried to talk through his part of the story. “You were with us a couple days before Ben… uh. He didn’t like that you wouldn’t talk to him.”

Ren made a derisive noise. Hux glared at him. Of course Ren had done something to annoy him out of silence. He always did.

“We never figured out what Ben did to you, other than he probably used the Force to do it. You beat him to within an inch of his life. Kid was only five, you were seven. I came in when Ben was throwing you against the wall, both of you were howling-”

“Oh, wait!” Organa said through a mouthful of salad, withdrawing a datapad from her tunic and projecting a holo above the table. On it, a very young Hux and Ben looked extremely upset with one another. Hux had a wide cut across his forehead that went back into his hairline, and Ben had a black eye.

“That’s it. That’s what I came home to.” She nodded, dismissing the holo and recovering from her earlier faux pas by dabbing at her mouth and taking another delicate bite of salad. She chewed and swallowed completely this time. “Han tried to separate you, but both of you threw a fit. You both wanted to fight again. _Han_  let you.”

Solo shrugged. “Kids fight. Might as well let them.”

“Hux was trained at a military academy, dad. He knew how to break my neck.”

Hux grunted. He probably could have at age seven, though he had been a small seven-year-old. He hadn’t picked any physical fights himself at the Arkanis academy or afterwards, and it had been several years before he’d learned how to gain advantages in other ways.

“Han knew you hadn’t been talking, and since you were talking to Ben, he let you two play. Mon and I were so happy when we came back. Armitage wouldn’t stop telling her about how much he hated Ben. Ben wouldn’t stop complaining about Armitage, either.”

Hux closed his eyes to keep them from rolling. This was difficult to listen to. He wondered why Ren was subjecting himself to this.

Organa seemed to sense that she wasn’t getting the rise out of Hux she wanted. She gestured to Hux’s salad. Hux raised an eyebrow, but pushed it her way. She gave him a challenging stare in return, but took his bowl and began eating it.

“So I can’t ask you how the warmongering business is going, then? Ben? I saw on the news today that the Breetans had blockaded Mirialan with the battleships from Khyron Manufacturing. Know anything about that?”

She maintained an innocent expression, but the question was still barbed. Ren clenched his fist around his fork and looked down.

“That was…” He glanced at Hux. _That was your business. You’re supposed to have a cover story for my mother about this._

Hux shrugged, looking at Organa. “What’s the conflict between those two planets?”

“Nothing,” Organa replied, more forcefully than necessary. “Relations have always been tense. But the Breetans hadn’t filed any formal complaints with the Senate. So I was surprised.” Her tone, again, suggested that she was not surprised at all. But she was still wearing her diplomatic mask.

Her implications were immensely satisfying. It meant that Hux was still somehow working outside the New Republic system. And that was likely why Organa still hated him.

Pleased with himself, he kept the polite volley going. “How long would a Senate inquiry have taken? Are you sure they didn’t try?”

The table went awkwardly silent. Ren pushed an appreciative thought his way.

_You fight my mother the same way you always do. And you still love it._

Hux looked over at him, smirking. _Good_.

Ren cleared his throat, and forked the last bite of salad into his mouth. “I didn’t hear about Mirialan today.” This was a careful evasion, and Hux glanced at Skywalker, wondering if Ren’s family could sense a lie. “I was on Mimban, at the human settlement. I was consulting with the Prince when Crymorah began attacking them. Has it made the news?” The last was said pointedly, suggesting an old argument.

Organa snorted, finishing her second salad. “I heard. Somehow, Crymorah left them alone.”

“Somehow,” Ren repeated, a little bitterly. “Yeah. The Prince asked the Crymorah assassins to stop, and they did. Can you believe it?”

“No,” Organa said, pushing a button to clear the table again. As they waited in silence, they were served a pink rice mixed with vegetables on flatbread. Hux watched as the others rolled the flatbread up with the ingredients inside, then carefully copied them.

“So we met when Ren was five and I was seven,” Hux prodded, after eating several mouthfuls of the rice and bread. The texture was horrendous, but it wasn’t overly spiced, and he was hungry. “Are there any more amusing anecdotes you’d like to share tonight?”

Organa narrowed her eyes. “Don’t push your luck.”

“I will,” Skywalker offered, taking a messy bite of his rice roll, causing the rice to spill down onto his plate and into his beard. Hux frowned at him, looking pointedly between his plate and beard. Skywalker made no attempt to neaten himself.

“You and Ben were inseparable after that. Ben went to the same academy you did, and you would both come back here with Han and Chewie in the afternoons.”

Solo nodded. “You were different after that. You went from a quiet, well-behaved refugee to a little shit overnight.”

Hux raised an eyebrow, and Ren was obviously amused.

“You brought out the worst in Ben,” Skywalker continued. “He started using his Force abilities more and more. To fight you, and also to make you do what he wanted.”

Hux scowled at Ren. That also sounded too much like something he would do, except he’d never used his Force suggestions on him. Apparently young Ben Solo had known even less restraint. Ren shrugged, unaffected, shoveling more of the rice into his mouth.

“After years of Ben getting worse, I tried to take him away to teach him control. I really wanted to start a new Jedi Academy. I had three other potential students, all younger than Ben, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to pass along what I’d learned. And if there were more students, we could all learn more about the Jedi Order.”

Organa cut in. “Neither of you liked that. You didn’t believe me when I said Ben was going. In fact, you called me a liar, and convinced Ben you were right. But when you finally realized I was serious, you tried to get Mon on your side.” She shook her head. “That almost worked. You never asked Mon for anything, and she would have moved worlds for you. But she knew Ben was getting worse, and she told you that he would still visit.”

She left the story there for a few minutes, taking careful bites of the flatbread roll. Once she had finished, she pointed an accusing finger at Hux. “So you kidnapped Ben, and ran away from home. When you were gone, we thought you’d been kidnapped by Imperials. You took years off Mon’s life.”

Rather than being embarrassed, Hux was amused by this. It was quite the plan for a child, and it was good to know that his education in the New Republic wasn’t lacking. In knowledge and initiative, anyway. It was certainly lacking in… the other things.

“How old was I?”

“You were ten, Ben was eight.”

“And where did I go?”

“The park in front of the Senate complex. You decided you were going to live in the playgrounds.”

Hux frowned at the synchronicity of it, but Skywalker continued. “It took us almost a day to find you. We were waiting for a ransom note. But eventually someone reported two kids by themselves in the park.” He swallowed, but still did not attempt to wipe the rice from his beard. “I did take Ben after that, but only for a few months. He refused to learn from me.”

Ren grinned, though it wasn’t necessarily a smile. “I didn’t like you kidnapping me, either.”

“No, you’d rather Hux did it,” Organa said bitterly. Hux suppressed his own smirk. That was absolutely true.

“Ben refused to get along with the other students, too. He was always fighting them. He’d learned how to fight from you.” Skywalker shook his head, but he seemed more amused by this than Organa had. “When he came back the first time, he wouldn’t talk to Leia or Han. He lived with you and Mon for a week, since he’d been there the one time Mon Mothma had tried to tell Leia it might be a bad idea to separate the two of you.”

“And that’s how you met,” Organa finished shortly. She was giving Hux an openly hostile look, though Hux couldn’t decide why. Did she really disapprove of Hux in some fundamental way that was not mitigated by knowing him since he was a child? Were the childhood memories really so bitter? Hux could tell her worse.

“Hux is still confused,” Ren supplied helpfully. “He doesn’t know why you hate him.”

Hux shot him a look, then turned back to Organa. “I doubt you hate me, Senator Organa-”

“ _Senator!_ ” Organa laughed. “You really aren’t yourself.” She studied him for a few moments, her face sliding into her practiced Senator's expression, then continued. “I shouldn’t be so hard on you, if it’s true you lost your memory. Which you probably did. You would have contradicted me at least three times while I told that story. And you wouldn’t have called me _Senator_ , or asked why I hate you.” She turned to Skywalker. “Let’s lighten things up, huh?”

Skywalker looked at her with a mild expression. “That reminiscing was the most civil dinner conversation we’ve ever had.”

“It was,” Organa agreed, using her fingers to brush the rice out of Skywalker’s beard, then turning a bright eye to Hux. “And we’ll leave it at that. Where’s my cake?”

She turned around, and a gold-plated protocol droid tottered in with a huge cake on a platter. Much was made of the cake by Skywalker and Organa, though Ren, Hux, and Solo remained silent through the festivities. Skywalker and Organa hardly noticed. Hux found Organa’s social skills enviable - there was an art to keeping shallow conversation going, and reasons to hone the skill, but it was not one that Hux possessed himself. He was better at one-on-one conversation with an objective.

Hux suffered through more holos - Ben and Hux at an elite academy, where they were wearing the matching uniforms that Hux had spotted earlier. Apparently Hux had excelled, the holos he’d seen earlier from a series of elite medal ceremonies. He’d hounded Ben to maintain high enough grades to stay in the academy, though Ben had no interest in the studies. Ben had excelled in physical clubs and activities, and there were many holos of Ben wrestling, fencing, and playing various sports, winning awards in all of them. Apparently Skywalker had kept his academy going, Ben begrudgingly attending two months out of the year as his studies at the other school grew poorer. Ben had refused outright once he’d turned seventeen, and Skywalker had disbanded it permanently after failing to hold his most gifted student’s interest. So the last Jedi in the galaxy became a mechanic, and was apparently happier for it.

There were many, many holos of Ren and Hux together, and as the night wore on, Hux felt increasingly like an outsider again. He had not attended this elite Republic academy, where he had been allowed to go home to a friend's family in the afternoons and a loving mother at night. He had likely never starved or suffered a single day. He also hadn't been forced to watch his back, lest he be killed by a competitive student, circumstances, or some other plot. There were holos of him together with Mon Mothma, the two of them smiling, she growing older and older through the years, but never less happy-looking. Hux always looked either dour or happy. There were also many holos of him with the Skywalkers and Organas, and others. There were two men that Hux didn't recognize, Mon Mothma's main aide and his husband. Hux had allegedly worshipped this man, who had been an ex-ISB agent who had all too eagerly shared his skills with Hux. There were also many holos of the Wookiee that Ren sometimes spoke of, and his Wookiee family.

It was… almost artificial-sounding. It had happened to him, because there were holos. It had also never happened to him. This wasn’t the life that had shaped him into the person he was. And the person he was was a stranger to Ren.

Organa occasionally made a pointed comment about his and Ren’s current lifestyle, and Han Solo sometimes dropped innocent remarks that implied that he worked for them occasionally. All comments of this nature were dismissed immediately, and Hux had no idea what he and Ren did that gave them planetary control of the weather and granted them the largest suite in the most exclusive building in the galaxy.

When they left, the two of them rode in silence in their empty luxury transport. The rain was no longer falling, and the artificial light periodically lit Ren’s profile, the sharp line of his nose and lips. Noticing his attention, Ren looked over at him, contemplative.

“You told me you remember the first time we kissed. That you remember it happening in the Senate park.”

“Yes.” Hux inhaled, not sure that he wanted to ask the question, but knowing that Ren wanted to tell the story. One that hadn't already been recounted in exhausting detail in front of Ren's family. Both of them were wary, and obviously emotionally drained. Clearly they both still avoided conversations like this. “Where was the first time we kissed, Ren?”

Hux couldn’t see his expression in the dark, though he felt a sharp stab of fondness. Ren looked back out the window.

“I don’t remember. We always kissed. Mon kissed you hello and goodbye in the mornings, and you started doing it to me when we were pretty young.”

Hux opened his mouth, then closed it, mortified. Of all the things that had been said about him, this was by far the worst. He’d been kissing Ben Solo since they were boys. It was like an embarrassing childhood fantasy coming true.

“Perhaps those didn’t mean the same thing as a real kiss, Ren. When did we kiss on the lips?”

“I kissed you. I was fourteen, it was when I had to leave for Uncle Luke’s school.”

Hux thought about this, not looking at Ren. “Were we alone, or was this in front of your parents, who still seem to hate me?” _I didn’t even eradicate the system this time, certainly that counts for something_ , he thought but didn’t say.

Ren didn’t seem to pick up on it. “We were alone. We kissed for a long time.”

“Did I say I’d miss you?”

Ren snorted. “No. I said it.”

“Of course you did.”

Ren turned, looking at Hux again, his expression masked by darkness. “How can you still know me so well, even without any of your memories?”

The answer was very simple. But he cocked his head, considering what Ren wanted to hear.

 _Our lives are bound_.

“I’ll always know you, no matter what. I would never forget you.”

Ren’s breath caught, and his hand found Hux’s in the dark, squeezing and holding it.

They hadn't often held hands outside their bed. They'd never needed to. But Hux decided he needed it now, and kept his hand inside the warmth of Ren's palm, looking back to the opaque dark window and riding in silence back to their suite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One set of throwaway names was the Zentraedi from Robotech. Although Miria already had a Star Wars planet, so.


	20. Part Four: Lanval - Chapter 4

**One Year Before Starkiller…**

 

There was simply too much work. Even with little sleep and three junior officers to track his appointments and reassign nonessential tasks, Hux still found himself days behind his own schedule. Each cycle brought its own new problems, and it felt like the completion of the weapon crept further and further away. His own fleet and all its resources were dedicated to protecting shipments, sourcing supplies, and helping complete the Starkiller project. It had nearly broken him to have all his own carefully trained Troopers assigned to simple labor tasks, such as excavating and terraforming WS-19557. They were meant to fight wars, and instead they were operating hoverpods and transporting tools to construction sites.

And even with the entirety of his own personal army and thousands of trained professionals on the surface of the planet, everything was _still_  behind. Things kept happening. The weather was unstable and difficult to predict as the weaponization began, which caused construction delays. The experimental containment fields were too experimental. They’d run out of vital building supplies four times. The planetwide shield kept failing in the southeast quadrant.

At his desk on the _Finalizer_ in a rare moment alone, Hux felt his shoulders tighten when he received a notification that their kellium shipment was intercepted by pirates. Why did they even train fighter pilots, if they couldn’t prevent simple theft?

He jumped when the door to his private suite opened unexpectedly, scowling as Ren entered. He’d lost track of Ren - he’d returned from Snoke’s training the day before, but Hux had been planetside, as he often was. Meetings with the rest of the fleet had brought him back to the _Finalizer_  this morning, but he hadn’t thought to check for Ren aboard.

Ren had, of course, needed to make himself known by using the private door to the office, which they’d made off-limits long ago to save them both unnecessary embarrassment. At least he was dressed in his usual black tunic and robes, and not wandering around naked and freshly showered. They’d fallen out of the habit of spending time together after Ren’s training sessions, but Ren still tried to annoy him into wasting an afternoon with him on occasion.

He assumed that’s what Ren was doing in his office. He hated that Ren had startled him. Hux had been so overwhelmed he hadn’t sensed Ren’s presence in his own thoughts, which was obvious now that he looked for it. He covered his surprise with anger.

“Did you know I wasn’t in a meeting, or did you not care?”

Ren was also wearing his mask, which wasn’t a good sign in private. It either meant that Ren had invited someone else to the office, or that he was about to say something that Hux didn’t like. Hux didn’t want to deal with either right now. He put a palm up to stop Ren from speaking.

“Nevermind, it doesn’t matter. Make this short. I have meetings the rest of the afternoon, and I’m meant to be catching up on reports beforehand.”

“Your meetings aren’t here.” Ren’s voice was flat through the vocoder, and he was guarding his thoughts. He did it more often these days, and Hux found him frustratingly difficult to read. He seemed relaxed enough today, however. He collapsed into the chair in front of Hux’s desk, slouching forward as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “And you’re always busy. I have a proposal for you.”

Hux arched an eyebrow. This was… highly unusual. It had been some time since Ren had taken an initiative. “Make it quick.”

“Your weapon is nearly finished, and we are close to eliminating the New Republic. Permanently. There won’t be any coming back from Starkiller.”

Hux waved his hand impatiently. “Don’t waste time. We both know this. We’re almost six months out from a scheduled completion, if I can go to these meetings well-informed and head off the rest of the delays.”

“Yes, you’re very important. I want to hurt the New Republic in a different way. Even after the total destruction of the government, there will still be holdouts and cells of Resistance.”

“We know about the Resistance already. They’re causing us headaches, but it’s not unmanageable." Literal headaches. Hux rubbed absently at the back of his neck, where his muscles were perpetually bunched in pain, causing him a near-constant stress headache. "Admiral Thek is currently tracking them to their boltholes. Guerrillas like that on a galactic scale take time to eliminate. We can spend more resources on them once Starkiller is complete.”

“If we leave them until after the destruction of Hosnian Prime, it will give the other Republic systems something to rally behind. We need to stop it now.”

Hux gestured again, dismissively this time. “Fine. Go do that.”

Ren shifted, the tone of his voice staying level. Hux was impressed - he usually wasn’t so patient with the edges of Hux’s temper. “We need something that will remove all hope from the New Republic holdouts.”

“Something worse than the destruction of the capital planet? That’s an atrocity. I can assure you, it will be a real morale killer.”

“We need to take away the thing that they’ll turn to after that.”

Hux blanked his screens. Ren was obviously serious about this. Hux would make the shield team explain themselves more thoroughly in the meeting. His head throbbed. “You have something in mind. Tell me.”

“Luke Skywalker.”

Hux grunted, disappointed. Invoking Ren’s uncle was not done lightly, and he didn’t have time to sit through one of Ren’s tirades. Still, Ren was behaving at the moment, so Hux indulged him. “What about Luke Skywalker?”

“After the destruction of Hosnian Prime, what's left of the Resistance will go to him. He’s a hero. If we eliminate him now, they’ll only have their cobbled together Rebel fleet and handouts from sympathetic systems. There won't be many willing to offer sympathy, if your weapon works as intended. The Resistance won’t last long like that. If they do survive, it will be a far less significant force, and easy to break.”

Ren had a point, though this was still a dangerous topic. Hux sighed, folding his hands on his desktop and inclining his head. “Take off your mask, and let me see your face.”

Ren sat forward, removing his mask. He looked exhausted.  At least as tired as Hux felt. “You don’t need to see my face to know it’s a good idea, Hux.”

“Ren. I’ve listened to your diatribes against Luke Skywalker many times. They've only gotten worse. I can admit that there’s practical advantages to this idea, but I’m reluctant to send you off to find your- to find Luke Skywalker. You can understand my hesitation.”

Ren had grown more erratic over the years, his temper flaring out of control at the slightest provocation. His usual careful attention to battle strategy and Trooper technique were all forgotten if the enemy somehow made him mad. He was more prone to physical displays of temper, even when not in combat. It was easy to imagine Ren flying to pieces the moment he confronted Luke Skywalker. If he was angry enough, a child could defeat him.

As if to prove him right, Hux sensed a spike of anger through Ren’s barriers, and his expression darkened. “My personal feelings don’t have anything to do with this. It’s a good idea.”

“Mmmmm. I’m sure that’s all that you think of this. A good idea, for the good of the Order.” Hux narrowed his eyes, but then something more awful occurred to him. “Ren. Is this your idea, or Snoke’s idea?”

Ren sat back in his chair, scowling. “What difference does that make?”

“It makes a difference to me. Whose was it? Did Snoke tell you to do this?”

“No.”

“Did he mention Luke Skywalker? Or how advantageous it would be to eliminate him?”

“No! We… talk about him, sometimes. You know that Snoke… teaches me to cultivate my anger.”

Hux did. He hated it. They’d fought about it many times, until Hux had given up. Ren’s training was his own.

“So we discuss Luke Skywalker. He came up recently. But I was thinking of… I was thinking of Starkiller. And I thought now might be a good time to strike against the Jedi.”

Ren looked satisfied by this answer, and leaned back in the chair again, arms crossed, looking smug.

Hux frowned. He knew that stoking Ren’s grudges was one of the ways Snoke trained him. And to some extent, Ren was well-suited to such things, though he claimed to be above them. Even Hux couldn't hold a grudge like Ren, and Hux knew it was one of his weaknesses. Ren had grown more powerful over the years, but it was also Snoke’s training that made him increasingly erratic, difficult to predict, and hard to work with. He didn’t like that this idea had come from a training session.

“It’s not that I don’t think you’re capable of the plan, Ren. You know that I respect your decisions.” Hux looked down at his desktop and idly began tracing the edge of a screen with his finger. This wasn’t a lie, but it was also rote, something he needed to say before he criticized. He glanced back up. “I just need to know whether Snoke is taking an interest in the First Order, and how. You know he never gives me any input. I’d like to know if he… has any thoughts on our success.”

Basically, he needed to know Ren wasn’t being set up for failure. But Ren had a habit of defending Snoke, and would grow suspicious if Hux tried to speak treason against him.

Ren stared at him, obviously understanding Hux’s question.

“No. I didn’t tell him my plan. I told it to you. I knew you’d appreciate it.”

“I do.” Hux sighed, standing and walking to the front of the desk, closer to Ren. “It’s a good plan. But I think you’re too… emotionally involved with the goal.”

“I can do it.” Ren shot to his feet, offended, another spike of anger coming through his mental barriers. “I’ll start right now.”

“Ren.” Hux put a hand on his shoulder. He wavered a moment - did Ren need firm direction right now, or did he need understanding? It was so hard to know, when Ren was guarding his thoughts against Hux.

“Take down your mental barriers. What’s the point of that?”

Ren narrowed his eyes, but did as Hux asked. Hux’s stomach twisted as wave after wave of pulsing anger crashed through his mind, along with a need to succeed, a drive to prove himself, a desire to action, to _something_. There was the cold, too. Not bad, but it still sank like needles into Hux’s brain, overriding his stress headache with new pain, running down his spine and making his fingers and toes numb.

Hux stopped himself from flinching, holding Ren’s eyes and squeezing his shoulder harder, nearly supporting himself against Ren. He should have looked for Ren yesterday. He was always like this after training, but it was getting worse. Hux just didn’t have the _time_.

“I know you can do it. You rarely fail me, and you know I trust you with things like this, especially since it was your idea. But the Knights of Ren could do this for you, correct? They were Luke Skywalker’s students, too. Certainly they felt the same lack in his teachings as you did, if they killed their classmates and followed you. They should have the motivation, and… _connection_  required to find him?” Hux slid his arm further down Ren’s shoulder, sinking his thumb into his bicep. “And the Supreme Leader has mentioned that your training was almost complete?" He'd said something to the effect when they were all three together, Hux assumed it was meant to make him feel jealous of Ren. "You should stay near the fleet and focus on that. If he calls on you, you don’t want to be in a crucial mission you can’t be pulled away from.”

Ren frowned. Snoke had done it before - pulled Ren out of an active situation, causing headaches for both Ren and Hux and a failure for the mission itself. Snoke cared little what Ren was up to, or whether it served the Order. It was probably the largest part of why Ren had brought this idea to him and not Snoke. As much as Hux wanted to believe it was due to Ren’s confidence in what he’d do with it, it was more likely that Ren knew Snoke wouldn’t care.

Hux pitched his voice lower, leaning in, his lips near Ren’s ear. He knew a personal appeal would work, that if he framed it as a favor, Ren would say yes. Ren was sentimental, and it was a weakness Hux could exploit.

“It would also make me feel better to keep you close right now, Ren. I’m having a difficult time managing without you. The base is almost finished, and it’s vulnerable to discovery. We need to keep the lanes around the system clear, and you’re a better pilot than anyone else I have. Better able to lead. You guide the pilots with the Force, and can sense the enemies. You’re more experienced and creative in the heat of battle.” Ren was also notoriously bloodthirsty, and had almost three times as many kills as the next best pilot. Ren knew that.

He took a step back, pulling away from Hux's grip. The fury in his mind abated somewhat, though he was obviously unhappy. He wanted to _do_  something, and Hux was suggesting inaction. He eyed Hux warily, likely sensing the manipulation, but acceding anyway. “Okay. I’ll send the Knights to find Skywalker.”

Hux rounded his desk again, running his fingers over the screens set into the surface. But he didn’t sit down, and he kept his eyes pinned to the desktop. “How long do you think it will take to find Sywalker?”

Ren shifted. “It’s said he went into hiding. They’ll have to chase down rumors. Interrogate. The usual.”

“The ‘usual’ doesn’t normally take place in Republic territory. They’ll have to be circumspect.”

“They are. I’ll have Jara Ren take care of it. She’ll be able to find him.”

Hux nodded. Jara was the best of the Knights, and nearly as successful at interrogating as Ren. She was… gentler, but they usually didn’t need a gentle touch. This time they did. “Good call.”

Ren looked less troubled, and nodded his agreement. “Fine. I’ll give the order. What do you want me to do after, for Starkiller?”

Hux left his face a careful blank and masked his thoughts the best he could. The truth was, he was drowning in meetings, reports, and planning. He had no time to coddle Kylo Ren and fabricate busywork for him. Ren would need to do that himself. But he couldn’t tell Ren that. They would fight, and Ren would immediately run off to find Skywalker himself. He scrambled for an immediate task.

“Make a circuit of the outlying systems, and identify typical trade traffic, the usual piracy, that sort of thing. There are some pirates in the Asha system that are causing us supply issues, if you can flush them out. Acquaint yourself with what goes on locally. Stop anything suspicious. Anything. Immediately. High Priority.”

Ren nodded, taking the instruction warily. It wasn’t obviously busywork, but it was tedious. It would occupy him for long enough, however.

Hux warmed to the order, embroidering it just a bit more. “Take as many pilots as you need. You know better than I do who’s good at a patrol. Make it so.”

Relying on Ren’s expertise would also help his current… mood. Ren stood wordlessly, obviously distracted, his gaze darting around the office. He was still angry, but he was thinking about what he would tell the Knights, and how he would handle their search from Starkiller.

It was something for Ren other than anger, and it was productive. It was exactly what Hux wanted. But as he approached the door, Hux stopped him, one thing weighing on his mind. He needed to say it now, before he forgot and lost himself in Starkiller again. It was important, suddenly.  He walked back around to the front of his desk, standing at attention.

“Snoke. You're nearly finished with your training. What… what does that mean, Ren?”

Ren stopped, leaving his back to Hux. “He hasn’t revealed that to me yet.”

“So you don’t know? Is it some kind of test? A final lesson?”

Ren turned back around, obviously angry, forgetting entirely about Hux's careful distraction. “No. He didn’t tell me. But I’ll know when it’s time.”

Hux put up both hands in a conciliatory gesture. Hux still wanted to avoid an argument if he could. He didn’t have the time. “I’m sure you will. But I want to talk about it now. Snoke’s training has helped you immensely. You’ve gotten stronger. We can both agree on that, yes?”

Ren, expression stormy, extended a hand. Hux’s desk, bolted to the floor of his private office, wrenched from its fastenings and slid across the floor, gouging long, deep scratches in its wake. It slammed into the back of Hux’s thighs, causing him to splay ungracefully across the top, cracking one screen. He cursed under his breath, and shot Ren a withering look, deciding to stay splayed across the desktop to emphasize the destruction.

“Use your words, Ren. I’m busy.” It was a mild enough response, given that Ren had just destroyed his office.

“Yes,” Ren snapped back, bunching his hand into a fist and dropping it to his side. “I’ve gotten more powerful. I’m stronger. I can invade minds and take what I like. I can sense others, read their thoughts, and at a greater distance. I can influence more with the Force. I feel more attuned to the Dark under Snoke’s guidance than I ever did to the meditation meant to call the Light.”

All of it was true, and Ren did it all without a thought now. Including reading any mind he wanted. Hux had always been averse to that, as useful as it was - it meant that the connection between the two of them was no longer special. Ren could do it with anyone. But it didn’t matter. Hux dismissed it, telling himself once again that it was Ren’s powers that were unique, not their connection.

“Yes. You are nearly unstoppable. You’re strong, Ren, powerful. But how much further can you grow, with Snoke as a teacher? Can he possibly take you further?”

Ren stepped closer. He snatched his helmet, which had laid forgotten on the floor. He clenched his hand around the top, and it creaked in his grip. “The path goes forward, farther. There’s always more power. More strength. You wouldn’t understand.”

The air grew thick between them. Ren's gaze was piercing, his body tensed for violence. Hux felt the cold creeping in again. Ren hadn’t been this angry with him in a long time. He didn’t understand, it was true. They’d grown from a mutual dislike of Snoke to Ren simply tolerating Hux’s dislike. Hux remembered when Ben Solo had been taken from him, but that had been years ago, and it was difficult to imagine that Snoke could do the same to Kylo Ren now. He’d only gotten older, and Ren had gotten stronger. Hux had to be careful. He drew a breath, continuing.

“I know. I don’t understand, and I trust you with all of it. You’ve grown so much over the years. You should be proud of yourself. You chose the right path.” The air thinned slightly, as Ren was always susceptible to praise, especially when Hux worked hard to make it less condescending. It was hard for him, though. He did not offer praise lightly, or copiously. “But you must have reached a point, or will soon, where you can walk the path yourself? You’re so strong, Ren. You should be your own master. Certainly you’ve passed Snoke by now?”

The air thickened again, and this time, Hux had difficulty breathing. He was sure it wasn’t an intentional threat from Ren, but the result was the same. He inhaled again, masking a gasp, as Ren took another step forward, expression terrible, helmet gripped in one hand.

“Passed Snoke. No. You don’t…” He shook his head, and his expression was suddenly haunted, sad. A hand reached out, and for a moment, he was regretful, remorseful. Something about Hux-

He dropped his hand. Whatever he had been about to say slipped away, and he gathered his anger again, as he so often did now. “I am not Snoke’s equal. He still masters me every time we train.” He shook his head more decisively. But the air thinned, and the chill abated.

Hux took that as a good sign. Ren was trying to make him understand. He so rarely did, when it came to his training. “I don’t know, Hux. When he says I’m near the end of my training… I’m not at his level. Not even close. I don’t know what he means.”

Ren’s eyes suddenly unfocused, his gaze on something unseen. Ice crept down Hux’s spine, unrelated to the Force. He stayed on the desk, splayed out, looking up at Ren.

So Ren’s training would be complete. In other words, Snoke would be done with Ren.

It seemed to coincide with the use of Starkiller. It might mean Ren was in danger. He could say as much, tell Ren that the end of his training was not a good thing, if what he said about Snoke’s power was true. But Ren would tell him the same thing he always did. That Hux didn’t understand, that Ren was learning, that Snoke was the teacher he needed.

The time had come. The time was now. Snoke would kill Ren, though Snoke’s nearly complete lack of interest in the Starkiller project made the timing strange. Why now? Would he also kill Hux, once Starkiller was completed, to somehow manipulate Ren at the end?

Hux needed to kill Snoke. Ren needed to kill Snoke.

He stared into Ren’s face, knowing Ren could read his thoughts. Was he? The barriers were down, but Ren’s thoughts were hazy, his eyes unfocused, and Hux couldn’t tell if he was paying attention to anything at all.

Suddenly, Hux let his anger get the better of him. He couldn’t do all of it alone. Starkiller, overthrowing Snoke. Ren had to do something himself. He was the one that knew Snoke, and certainly he saw where this was going. Hux was handling their problems with the New Republic, and it was utterly overwhelming. There was so much to it, much more than Hux realized, more than an infinite number of Officers and scientists and staff could handle. Somehow, everything was happening too slowly, and all at once.

And then there was the Supreme Leader, who didn’t care. Or cared about something else, in a way that Hux could not anticipate.

No. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t handle Snoke right now. He pushed himself off the desk, standing toe to toe with Ren, glaring at him. Ren seemed confused by his sudden fit of pique - he took a step back, expression wary.

“What? Do you suddenly want to know about my training? In what Snoke does to me? What he says about y-”

“Sudden.” Hux snorted. As if Ren hadn’t closed those doors himself years ago. “You’ve made it more than clear that I ‘don’t understand,’ and that you want no help or advice from me. I wish you the pleasure of the end of your training, Ren. I’m sure it will be _pleasant_.” Hux pushed past him, furious that he was now the one storming out of the room, but he had his meetings, and he was now unprepared, thanks to Kylo Ren. In fact, Ren had only given him more to deal with. He pulled his lips back from clenched teeth, snarling silently at the closed door to their rooms, hating that he would need to take an extra few moments to calm himself down before going out in public.

“Get the Knights of Ren pursuing Luke Skywalker. Brief them and dispatch them this afternoon, I want progress reports every two days. See to it that they chase any rumor, use any means necessary. I want Skywalker found and eliminated. He’s been a headache long enough.”

He slammed his hand into the door release and stomped through. Something like laughter, mean and painful, rang through his head. It was what Ren did, inevitably, when Hux was the one that stormed out of a room during an argument.

_An excellent plan, General. But since when do you command the Knights?_

“I command _everyone_ ,” he shouted to the empty suite, standing in the center of their main living area. “Because no one else will lift a finger to help! They only bring their problems to me. Every single fucking one of them!”

He couldn’t even have peace in his own rooms. He thought about crossing the ship and using Ren’s assigned quarters out of spite. But instead, he took several deep breaths, daring Ren to interrupt his thoughts again, to continue their fight inside Hux’s head, where Hux had no real defenses against it.

But as far as he could tell, Ren stayed in the office to sulk. Ren was blocking their link again, so there was no sign of what he thought of their argument. Fine. He could stay in the office, angry at whatever it was that set Ren off these days. Everything, nothing. He’d already destroyed the desk, what difference did it make if he took a lightsaber to the whole room?

Hux took several more breaths, calming himself and leaving thoughts of Ren and Snoke behind. There simply wasn’t time to deal with either right now. He checked himself in the mirror, straightening his uniform and fixing his hair where it had been knocked askew when he fell onto the desk. He retrieved another cap, and threw his greatcoat over his shoulders.

When he entered the main hallway and began walking to the transport, he already had a datapad up, reviewing the material he was meant to see before the meeting. He wasn’t going to be late, but he would be unprepared. It would run longer as a result, and everything else in his schedule would have to be pushed back.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Hux found himself dwelling on Snoke’s motives in the subsequent days. Try as he might, he couldn’t convince himself that Snoke was wholly Ren’s problem, or that Ren was prepared to deal with him. He was driven to distraction by it, his increasingly sleep-deprived mind returning repeatedly to Ren when there were so very many issues to resolve, meetings to attend, and schedules to write as Starkiller neared completion.

“I am concerned about the open war between the Bellin system and the Demians,” Admiral Kenis announced at the High Command meeting. She elaborated, and Hux's mind drifted. Ren was absent, off on some errand, and Hux himself was attending from the surface of WS-19557.  He was in an empty conference chamber, the other ten members of High Command appearing as crisp blue holos in their places around the long table. The transmission was clear and strong, and Hux silently congratulated himself that the relay issues had finally been resolved.  The room smelled like new construction, and one of the enormous walls was entirely transparisteel, normally offering a view of a flat, endless field of snow.  Currently, only the dim darkness of a severe blizzard could be seen, which was a small mercy. The bunker viewports had been installed without protection from sunlight, and it was possible to go snowblind indoors.

There was a conspicuous silence as Kenis finished speaking, and he forced himself to focus. The members of High Command had all turned to Hux, waiting expectantly. He blinked slowly, keeping his expression neutral. He hadn't heard a word the Admiral had said. Why was his input necessary? What problems would he need to solve now? Starkiller was already proving to be too much. He'd moved the completion date back another three months only last week. It felt like another failure.

As if sensing Hux’s apathy, Kenis frowned and continued. “The conflict affects the Gorin hyperlane, which is currently supplying your sector with, among other things, your nerf protein dietary supplements.”

Ah. There it was. A war that would starve the 20,000 people in and around the weapon. Lovely.

“Can the conflict not be contained elsewhere? Must it happen on the hyperlane?”

“The Demians possess an advanced fleet, General, as you know. It was the Demians that gave us most of the upgrades for the new TIEs, the ones that will ship to Starkiller base soon.”

Those were currently eight months behind schedule. Hux wanted to scream, to cut the transmission and sleep for three full cycles and wake up to the TIEs in the empty hangars. But he couldn’t lose face in front of High Command, puppets though they were.

“Fine,” Hux said, more tersely than he intended. “We intervene. Which side makes for better allies?”

There were better, more diplomatic ways to phrase that. _Which side was in the right?_  But there was no right side in this type of conflict, only petty grudges. They could dance around the question of alliance for twenty minutes as they sought the moral high ground. But Hux was too tired, and none of the others seemed to notice. The old Empire had been much more ruthless than Hux could even dream of, and most of High Command was still ex-Imperials.

As Kenis turned, pulling up a list of diplomatic profiles, Hux couldn’t bring himself to care in the slightest. His eyelids scraped heavily against his dry eyes. His muscles ached, despite the fact the only exercise he got these days was stepping on and off transports. He wasn’t sure he could pay attention to this meeting even if he wanted to.

As Kenis spoke of the third president’s second son and the unspeakable disrespect paid to him, Hux tried to draft a strongly-worded letter to Merr-Sonn Munitions about their delayed TIE fleet. But instead, he thought of the money, all the money they’d wasted, and how it mattered so little now that it all came from Snoke.

What _did_  Snoke want with Ren? Or the Order, for that matter? Their current directives had largely existed since the Order was founded, and almost all the leadership decisions fell to Hux and Ren, who had long since begun using High Command as their own project managers. They both reported to the Supreme Leader, of course, but Hux did little more than brief him. Snoke almost never issued his own orders, or even questioned Hux. He rarely even mustered the will to offer barbed comments anymore. Hux had always assumed this was some sort of power play, and that the Supreme Leader would make his will known once he had whatever measure of Hux that he wanted. But this had never happened. All the Supreme Leader had contributed to the First Order over the years was money, and his continued hold on Ren.

Neither was an issue, in and of itself. Hux was happy to have the funding with no obvious strings attached. Snoke did try to turn Hux and Ren against each other, presumably as part of Ren’s training. Ren had long ago stopped believing Hux would ever betray him, but they paid lip service to an adversarial relationship as much as possible. It wasn’t difficult to pretend the two of them fought over their Co-Commander roles. They did it in private often enough.

“That’s hardly the situation, Admiral, and I’ll thank you not to present it as such.” Withorn, an alarmingly round seventy-year-old career diplomat who handled most of the state business in the Order, surged suddenly to her feet. She had an honorary rank of Captain, but she’d been scavenged long ago from some Imperial holdout post, and hadn’t risen to a position higher than Junior Governor in her heyday. But she was oily and forceful and had never been openly disdainful of Hux, so he tended to like her.

She rarely spoke out at the High Command meetings, or even raised her voice.  His attention sharpened as she began some sort of contrary diplomatic diatribe, but it wasn’t long before he was fighting to keep his eyes focused and his mind on a more useful task.

Which, of course, he could not. After his recent argument with Ren, Snoke’s motives for having Ren as an apprentice bothered him. He wasn’t training a replacement or equal, or Ren would have been more sure of his progress. He never sent Ren on missions that pushed him or tested his powers - Hux did that, usually after training sessions with Snoke, in order to rebuild his confidence. The training sessions continued to be brutal. Ren still returned broken in body and spirit. Tired, furious, lacking confidence, and needing Hux to dote on him. Hux had lost patience for it over the years, hoping that Ren would eventually help himself.

Snoke was undoubtedly strong, and very much a threat to Hux. The memory of how he’d kidnapped Ben Solo so easily at that first meeting still haunted him. Hux was no match for Snoke, but it was difficult to believe that Ren, as powerful as he’d grown, was still below the alien. Snoke’s personality was awful, and his open mocking and manipulations were difficult to overlook, but he was still only a wasted and badly injured humanoid, and Ren was one of the most powerful beings in the galaxy. However, it was true that Ren was not a patient man, and would not have subjected himself to Snoke’s tortures over the years if there was nothing to learn.

Hux hated it, hated that it was only getting worse, hated that he hadn't had time to address it, or even think about it, since the Starkiller project had begun in earnest, nearly three years ago. He couldn't even recall when they'd slept together last. Ren had grown more difficult to know over the years, the training all but robbing him of his old personality, and Hux no longer had the time to parse his moods. He had no way of knowing what Ren actually thought of all this.

They felt less connected, and it was a lack that Hux noticed every time they spoke. But that couldn't be, it was simply that Ren had begun blocking his thoughts, likely because Hux was no longer making time for him. It was still true that no one knew Ren as Hux did, not even Snoke. There wasn’t anything that could really separate them. Hux would be deciphering his moods for the rest of their lives, with or without the Supreme Leader.

Ultimately, Hux could come to no conclusion, other than Snoke was an unknown danger, and that Ren’s training being “complete” couldn’t be good.

“Well, General?”

All ten members of High Command were staring at him again. He studied each of their faces slowly, to buy himself time. They were divided about some course of action, and wanted his opinion. Hux didn’t care, but he couldn’t say that. The disagreement was obviously between Withorn, who was angry enough to be flushed, a remarkable tell on the unshakable diplomat, and Kenis, who had gone so far as to remove her command cap and run a gloved hand over her graying hair.

Well. He hadn’t done a favor for Withorn in a long time.

“Do as the Captain says, Bri,” Hux concluded, standing. He enjoyed using the first names of the older officers when he could, enjoying the subtle disrespect of it. After all, he'd been 'Armitage' for years, even after his father's death. And what could they do? Punish him for it? Ren would stop them. Between Ren and Opan, no one had made an attempt on his life in years.

It was the right thing to say. Eight of the members looked relieved, and shot covert glances at Withorn. Withorn was pleased, Kenis furious.

“That will be all the business for today,” Hux said abruptly. “I trust that the rest of you can handle your responsibilities and continue to assist construction of the weapon in all ways?”

Three of them dropped their gazes to the counter. Kenis was still furious. Withorn saluted sloppily.

“Very well. Dismissed.”

He cut the holo before anything more could be said, then collapsed into the chair. He would kill any number of people for a full shift of rest, something that was not coming easily to him lately. Even when he scheduled the rare four-hour window, he found his mind too occupied to sleep. It felt like a waste of time.

Perhaps he would have to kill several billion people before he could rest. The thought turned his stomach. The deaths were necessary, and at least they wouldn’t suffer. It would stop billions more deaths in the galaxy.

Was Snoke eventually planning on killing him and Ren? He was ruining Ren, and Ren seemed unwilling to save himself.

The datapad in the pocket of his greatcoat chimed, indicating one of his aides had something urgent for his attention. He heard that chime, sometimes, when it wasn’t really there. His hand was already in his pocket, his mind running a thousand different ways, before he could stop himself.

The Supreme Leader would wait. Ren would wait. He couldn’t do anything before Starkiller was complete.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Weeks passed, and the weapon crept marginally closer to completion. Hux traveled back and forth between WS-19557 and the _Finalizer_ , and was so fatigued and sleep-deprived he was beginning to rely on his datapad to tell him where he'd been throughout the day, as well as where to go next. He began using more stims, and tended to take sleep only when absolutely necessary, usually aboard transports and during scheduled meal times. He only returned to his rooms to use the ‘fresher and exchange his uniform every few days, though the distinction between the nearly-unused quarters on Starkiller and his and Ren’s suite on the _Finalizer_  was blurring together.

It shouldn’t have. The quarters on Starkiller were lavishly appointed and very large, full of expensive and intricately-carved furniture that had been gifted to the Order by various cultures over the years. Some aid had decorated and designed it, and the clashing types and styles of furniture felt too strange, incongruous with the familiarity of the sparse Star Destroyer interiors he was used to. There were also enormous floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a stunning view of uninterrupted snow-covered wilderness, both smooth plains and the edges of the dense forest they'd needed to clear to construct the living quarters. The moon lit the landscape, reflecting off the snow and keeping the room bright at all hours. The furniture and tapestries on the walls were beautifully crafted pieces and colorful, but the rooms contained not a trace of either Hux or Ren's personalities. Hux had no idea of Ren even used them. Ren’s whereabouts kept slipping his mind, along with his worries about Snoke. He simply couldn’t process so much at once.

It was only while scanning an update on Resistance activity that Hux remembered Ren’s objective to eliminate the Last Jedi. He promptly searched for and found the regular status updates on the mission, relegated by an aide to some back folder he wasn't meant to see.

There were quite a few, and as it turned out, they all had little to report but rumor. But Ren had kept his promise to stay mostly uninvolved. Jara Ren was leading the investigations, and they appeared to be keeping a low profile in Republic space. Ren had been staying nearby, mostly on the _Finalizer_. Hux was impressed that he’d worked independently for so long under Hux’s impromptu and flimsy guidelines. He’d also been taking the TIE fleets out on local patrols, just as he'd promised. Hux was about to send him a comm, but his datapad chimed with another urgent notification, and he soon forgot.

It was another two weeks before Hux thought of Ren again, to see if he wanted to join him for a scheduled block of badly-needed sleep. Ren was away, though still nearby. He was rotating idle Trooper units and TIE fleets into short-term missions. This was an impressive show of foresight and initiative from Ren - all of Hux’s available Trooper forces were nearby, and were running out of tasks to perform. Ren was using them in rotating active duty shifts to protect the weapon, something that Hux hadn’t had time to schedule himself.

Hux was sleep-deprived enough that this kindness pushed him nearly to tears. And though he should be sleeping, he opened more reports, wanting to see more of Ren's work.

At first glance, it appeared as if Ren was traveling with the active patrols and initiating training exercises, which was even more touching. Hux, suddenly and acutely, missed Ren terribly, and badly needed to tell him to his face. It was this uncharacteristic rush of fondness that caused Hux to dig further, to see how Ren was training the units and how well they were adapting.

He was suddenly awake, his chest tight and his mouth sour, when he realized that Ren was not patrolling. He was _clearing out_  the local systems, exterminating entire local populations with the Trooper units he traveled with.

Unnecessary. Barbaric. That wasn’t the First Order, despite the weapon Hux wielded now. Starkiller was meant to be used once, to take out a single planet beyond redemption as a decisive show of force. It would ultimately save trillions of lives. What Ren was doing… that wasn’t how they wanted others to see the First Order. It was _wasteful_  and warmongering and _too much_.

And so, just over four months out from firing Starkiller, Hux cleared his schedule and found himself standing idle, waiting in the primary hangar on Starkiller for Kylo Ren’s TIE Interceptor to land and for the Master of the Knights of Ren to disembark. Hux had shot himself full of stims, and felt more clear-headed and purposeful than he had in a long time. The delays continued, problem after problem, and Hux had no recourse.

Ren, he could control. And he would. It had been too long.

He could feel Ren’s unsteady rage and his disappointment in himself almost as soon as his ship landed. It was bad, worse than it had been in a while, and Hux had simply not been close enough to see it. That Ren was clearing out planetary populations because he was _angry_  made everything much worse. Hux felt the moment when Ren realized he was close, that Hux wanted to speak to him. It was another two minutes before he was off the ship.

Hux had done this so many times over the years, standing in the hangar to welcome Ren back. It had been such a pleasure early on. He enjoyed letting the activity in the hangar, the pilots and technicians and controlled press of bodies pass in front of and behind him, Hux standing steady among the living, urgent press of the First Order's well-ordered daily operations. That first sure touch of Ren’s mind against his own, the sight of him emerging from his ship after an extended absence, had always been exciting.

Some part of Hux still wanted that to be true. They hadn't seen each other in so long. But the sight of Ren, tall and dark and powerful and so very _angry_ , didn’t affect him with the want it usually did. He carefully guarded his own emotions and intentions, but he couldn't entirely suppress his agitation, his wariness. His fear that Ren had gone too far this time, and might not come back.

Ren’s emotions were concealed, only the boiling anger detectable around the edges of his barriers. Hux wondered if he was happy to see him, if Ren had ever been happy to come back to the ship to find Hux waiting for him. Perhaps not. Perhaps he'd only ever been relieved that he wasn't being tortured by Snoke.

Ren approached him across the hangar with the loping stride that he’d perfected, the crowds of staff parting deferentially. He stopped in front of Hux, his robes settling around him. Hux watched the hem sway around Ren's boots, noting that both his outfit and his boots needed to be replaced. Hux pushed the thought away and forced his eyes up to Ren's helmet.

“Come with me,” he ordered flatly, turning and striding to the transports, not looking to see if Ren would follow. Hux knew he would.

They traveled for several minutes, a tense silence settling between them. On the second empty transport to their rooms, it was Ren who spoke first.

“What’s this about, General?”

“It’s serious, Ren. I want to talk to you. Privately.”

Ren was hopeful for a moment, but seemed to taste the edge of Hux’s mood, and immediately fell into another sullen silence.

When the two of them reached the hallway for the main command suite, Hux had a decision to make - office or suite? The office was better for the strategy meeting he actually wanted to have with Ren. But he so badly wanted to be in the private area. This was a private conversation, and Hux did so little privately anymore.

He regretted it as soon as he entered Starkiller's command suite - still colorful and elaborate and not remotely like either of them after all these months, with not even Ren’s disorganized clutter to lend it their personality. This wasn’t their shared space, and it wouldn’t be the private moment that Hux wanted. He sighed, spinning around.

“Take off your helmet.”

Ren paused, and Hux felt him almost object, almost press for more. But instead, he relented, reluctantly pulling off his helmet.

“You don’t need to see my face to give me an order.”

“I want to see your face, Ren. I’ve seen so little of it lately.”

This struck a chord. Ren’s expression fell for a moment, and he was the old Kylo Ren, with sad eyes who was lost and terrible at keeping his thoughts from his face. His bad mood wavered. He took a step forward, the helmet still held in front of him, the shield he didn’t need.

“You only needed to ask. You’re the one that’s been-”

“Ren.” Hux shook his head. “I cleared my schedule for this, because I want you to know how serious I am. I’m going to ask you something, to stop doing something. This isn’t an invitation to fight. I want you to really hear me.”

Ren’s anger vanished, replaced with a kind of worry. He took another step forward, tentative, wary. “What is it?”

Ren’s hesitance struck the soft place in Hux again, reminding him that this was still his Ren, that they truly knew each other. He lowered his voice, relaxed his expression. “It’s your current missions, Ren. You’ve been setting your own directives. You’ve been going to the nearby planets and killing everything sentient.”

A spike of anger flashed unguarded through Ren's thoughts and showed plainly on his face. “I’m keeping the base safe. The local populations know we’re here.”

“The local populations are _primitives_ , incapable of interstellar transmission and cut off from the rest of the galaxy and each other. The most advanced cultures have _rafts_  that barely move between planets. We made peace with one planet by making them a gift of one hundred ancient droids that barely functioned. Do you really think they pose a security risk, Ren?”

“The security of the base and its secrecy is a primary directive. You can’t tell me that's different  _now_.”

“I’m taking issue with your enforcement, Ren!” Hux raised his voice. “You’re committing genocide, and it's completely unnecessary! You're killing them by your own hand, and ordering Troopers who may have come from similar conditions to commit the same atrocities. Try as we might, the older ones always remember their origins, and missions like this affect the loyalty conditioning. How is that helpful?”

“You told me to neutralize security threats! Are you going to second-guess my decisions?”

“Ren, I’m not second-guessing you, I’m telling you not to murder innocents! That’s not our way, it’s never been our way! That’s what the Empire did to gain their reputation, and it’s in direct opposition to what we’re doing.”

“You kidnap people from planets all the time!”

“Recruiting isn’t kidnapping, no matter what the propaganda says. All those we take go into the Order willingly, or were given to our custody for a better life.”

Ren’s expression darkened, and any worry he had vanished. Hux’s only increased. This was going very poorly.

“Do you believe your own lies? I know exactly what ‘willingly’ looks like. I came here ‘willingly,’ didn’t I? And you, too. You've only been able to follow orders your whole life.”

Hux was struck silent for a moment. Ren’s glare dared Hux to contradict him. Hux couldn't, but knew he couldn't engage Ren's personal attacks.

“That’s not what I want to talk about. I can tell you’re doing this because you’re… angry, or bored. I understand! I’m asking you to find another outlet, and keep the base safe without murdering innocents.”

“Do we have to have a committee meeting whenever I want to invade a planet? How far up your list do I rank these days, Hux?”

Ren's personal attacks were hitting the mark. He wasn't angry, just... tired, and full of regrets. He took a step forward, put out a hand, all but begged Ren’s better nature.

“I can't advise you in this, it's true. But you don't need me or anyone else to do that for you anymore. You know the difference between what you’re doing and our normal missions. You haven’t changed that much. Before you begin another invasion, just ask yourself why. Are you bringing a hostile force planetside because you’re angry and bored, or because the planet has telecommunication and trade route access that could expose us? And even so, is killing them all the first step, or the last resort? You can command the diplomats and strategists just as well as I, and you’ve done it before. Consider it now.” He swallowed, and stepped forward again. They were very close, Ren's scowl only inches from his own. He held Ren's angry stare. He wanted to touch Ren, but instead he dropped his hand. “I know I haven’t been available lately, Ren. I am sorry for it. It will get better soon”

Ren, to Hux’s surprise, took a weary step back. “Hux. You’re about to destroy an entire government. The whole planet. Six billion people. Why do you care about this  _now_?”

Hux shook his head. “That’s different. You know why we have to eliminate that planet. And you know I don’t want to. Snoke wanted us to fire on the whole system, and I told him it was too wasteful. But one planet is necessary. Your... wars, eliminating these smaller planets, with populations of thirty thousand, two hundred thousand… you know it’s different. They have no stake in politics. If we asked, they could be allies. We don’t want to gain a reputation for killing innocents. This… the weapon. That’s going to be hard enough. You know it is. I do too.”

"You don't think we already have a reputation for murdering villagers?"

"That's different. No one listens to Republic propaganda."

"It's different? Isn't it true?"

"Not as true as they think, no. Not like the weapon will be."

Ren sneered. “ _The weapon_. Starkiller. That's all you care about now.”

“Yes! We've been working on it for years! Everything we've done with the Order, with our whole lives, has led to this!” This wasn’t true of Ren, but he was the one that claimed Ben Solo didn’t exist, so he couldn't argue semantics.

Which made Hux think of something else, something he should have realized earlier about Ren's mood. He took his own step back, frowning. “I noticed that your Knights still haven't found Luke Skywalker.”

Ren’s expression twisted into something ugly. “They will. I’m directing them myself. They’ll find him.”

“That’s why you’re angry. It’s not because I’ve been away, and it’s not the weapon. It’s this… obsession, this furious vendetta against Luke Skywalker. You’ve found a reason to go on with it, but you can’t, because you’re stuck here.”

Ren took two steps forward, his helmet pressing into Hux’s stomach. He got into Hux’s face. Hux didn’t know why. He’d never been afraid of Ren, and this was no different than his usual intimidation attempts.

“That’s not true. It’s not Skywalker.”

“ _It is_.” Hux was sure of it. He let his own mask slip, his fury at this ridiculous weakness of Ren’s entirely out of proportion, mostly anger at himself for not realizing. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed the outgoing transmissions, your angry rants, the lack of any sign of his whereabouts.”

“How could you? You have _so much else_  going on. Did you look it up an hour ago, in time for our scheduled meeting?”

“Ren.” This time, Hux took half a step back, trying to break the mood, taking his own deep breath, reminding himself that he wanted something more productive from this... talk. “Just… tell me what’s wrong. You wouldn’t have invaded those planets before. You’ve been unpredictable, angry… I feel like I hardly know you anymore. I don’t know what to do to make you happy.”

He hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but it was true, and it hurt. It hurt Ren too, obviously. He threw his helmet to the side. It made a sound as it bounced on the floor and cracked against an elaborately carved dark wooden bureau. They both watched it, the moment of silence playing out between them as the helmet spun in place and slowly came to a stop in front of a short wooden leg. Hux looked at Ren in profile. It was a face he knew so well, a face he’d wanted longer than he’d actually known Ren.

Ren turned back to him. His expression was lost, and horribly sad. His eyes bored into Hux.

“I haven’t been happy in a long time. I haven’t seen you in a year. I can’t remember the last time we slept together, ate together, talked-”

Ren paused and step forward, and Hux was sure that his mood would swing back to anger. But instead, he kissed Hux, hard, his hands going to Hux’s waist, making a noise deep in his throat that Hux felt in his mouth. Hux kissed him back, shocked, more so at himself for not seeing this kiss coming.

He should have known better, should have known this was the only way they could connect. Surprise and fatigue kept him from fully enjoying it. The kiss felt wrong, somehow. Only lips on lips, as intimate as their previous conversation, nothing more. It didn't quicken his pulse, he felt no heat in his face. Even Ren's mouth seemed to have no taste.

For as much as Hux missed Ren, for as _tired_  as he was, as much as he longed for their old life together, there was too much strangeness between them. A part of Hux despaired, that not even this could bridge the gap anymore.

Well. Perhaps Ren would take his message and stop killing innocents. He had said he was serious about it. Hux kissed him harder, hoping that this would make Ren happy, if nothing else would.

Ren hoisted him under the thighs and took him to their empty bed.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
Afterwards, Hux was exhausted to the very center of his being. He was sore in all the expected ways from sex - his hips, his knees, his ass and back. But he also still felt the deep muscle pain that came with fatigue and insomnia. He felt nearly delirious, unable to pull coherent thoughts together in his mind. He had cleared his schedule for an hour, and was fighting with himself to rise from the bed and get dressed.

He was out of energy, both physically and mentally. He didn’t know where he was supposed to be next. He had no idea what the day was. Was it engineering day? Biomechanical? Or were they going over the shielding again, the shipping route switch? Was it fleet day? He couldn’t even decide how to roll over and grab his datapad, let alone remember a full agenda for any of those departments.

Ren pulled him closer from behind, and he decided he didn’t care. He was warm, comfortable, in an actual bed. He wasn't bent over a desk, catching a single hour of sleep with his face pressed to a warm screen and the phantom sounds of his datapad chime ringing through his restless thoughts. He waved a hand in the air.

“Fetch my datapad. I need to cancel my meetings. Stay with me here.”

Ren grunted, but obligingly used the Force (he was so good at it now, and even his complaints about blasphemy had stopped) to pull Hux's datapad to the bed. Hux cleared his schedule for the next eight hours. Some small part of him nagged that it was a waste of time. The majority of him was more than done, though. His vision was so blurry, his hands shaking so badly, that he could barely see the screen. He was shocked that he was still conscious after the sex.

He threw the datapad across the room, not caring where it landed or what happened to it. He closed his eyes.

Ren. He was with Ren.

This didn’t solve any of their problems, it just put them off. The sex hadn’t even been that good. And Hux hadn’t even asked about Snoke, the end of his training-

“Don’t,” Ren growled into the back of his neck.

“Mmm,” Hux agreed, willing to keep the peace for the time being. He laid his hand over Ren's where it laid against his chest and twined their fingers togther. “But… would you consider re-training the troops? You haven’t in years. It would be better than what you’re doing now.”

Ren used to like it. He liked getting to know the Troopers and helping them learn new skills. He liked showing them how much better life in the First Order was. When Ren had first joined, it had given him the purpose he had so badly wanted, and Hux thought he had been happy then.

He wanted to ask about it. Wanted to talk to Ren about what he could do that he would enjoy, that would keep him from slaughtering the nearby worlds. Something he could do while he sat and waited for the 'just in case' disaster on the weapon and gave his Knights orders to do the thing he craved most.

But Hux was so very tired. And he was in a bed with Ren. They may have been planetside, but nothing was going to keep Hux from getting a full sleep rotation. Ren pulled him tighter, and Hux drifted off.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When he woke, Ren was gone, the bright light pouring in from the windows revealing a large empty expanse of bed with mussed gray sheets. Hux sat up, pushed the wreck of his hair out of his face, and studied the empty bed. Another opportunity for a conversation, gone.

He rose and went to the main room, worried about Ren’s whereabouts. He couldn’t find the datapad he’d tossed away yesterday, but the room was so cluttered with furniture that checking underneath everything would be a waste of time. He walked to a Trexalin desk, three times larger than the durasteel desk he kept in his office and shaped from smooth black curves of wood.  It was full of drawers and small compartments, and was some sort of royal heirloom, if Hux remembered correctly. He'd never even sat behind it before. He opened and drawer and withdrew a datapad, swiping a bare finger across so that it would read his biometrics and sync his data from the network.

Ren’s security clearance indicated he'd gone to his dedicated physical suite. Ren was only exercising. Apparently, he did that often when he was planetside, the log indicating that Ren was determined to make good use of the space. Hux had hardly noticed last night. Had Ren built muscle? Had he toned his body further, in his boredom? Hux certainly hadn’t. His diet had been poor, and his exercise regime poorer. Even exerting himself with Ren had left him in a great deal of pain. He'd long since lost the hungry leanness he'd possessed when he’d first met Ren. He'd softened significantly with age. Ren hadn’t ever mentioned it, but that had been going on for a long time. He’d never been as physically attractive as Ren, and never would be.

Hux could put on his uniform and go to Ren’s gym. They could have a real conversation this time, Hux more resistant to the temptations of sleeping and fucking. They could try to work out the issues from yesterday. But with the datapad in his hand, Hux noticed a number of urgent alerts from his aides, unread messages, and several meetings flagged as delayed. He cursed when one alert caught his attention, and he spent nearly thirty minutes standing naked beside the desk and sending replies before he thought to clean up and don a uniform.

In the ‘fresher, he thought about Ren again. He’d… changed. He tried to picture Ben Solo, the man who had fallen in love with Hux at first sight, who had crossed the galaxy to be with him, and who had loved training Stormtroopers, moving from planet to planet and pushing his lightsaber through the bodies of innocents for no reason other than boredom.

Ren had undeniably been doing it. But maybe what they’d done together yesterday would make the message clear. Hux cared about Ren, and they both cared about the Order. The Order was about keeping the galaxy safe. It wasn’t about threatening weaker planets into compliance. At least, not by killing them outright.

Their previous conversation would have to be enough. Hux didn’t have time for this. Ren would need to take care of himself this time.

He headed out to the rest of the base, his thoughts fully occupied by his next meeting.


	21. Part Four: Lanval - Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I abbreviated and simplified a lot of what Hux and Ren do professionally, so it sounds fairly outrageous. Forgive me - the chapter is long enough without it.

Hux’s New Republic lifestyle was far stranger than anything he’d experienced yet. And recently, he’d experienced quite a bit.

He was wealthy. He and Ren were both wealthy. As far as Hux could tell, their wealth approached, if not surpassed, what Snoke provided the First Order. Though he was no credit cruncher, he was fairly certain his current means could run a fleet far larger than the First Order he’d known. He had gone from destroying the entire Hosnian System for its corruption and centralization of wealth, to being the wealthiest being in the Hosnian System.

He also appeared to… exert his own undue influence. On everything. His business records indicated that he maintained several weapons manufacturers and shipyards. He also had ties to the tech and development side of the weapons and shipbuilding industries as well as control of the main dealers. And it wasn’t just a few side businesses - Hux appeared to own everyone he did business with. Most of the smaller companies he had a passing familiarity with were either out of business or also owned by Hux. These connections seemed to range from extremely public to… control of the underworld, according to his files. But that probably wasn’t right.

After three days spent in increasingly incredulous research, with constant messages to Ren to verify, Hux realized he held a galactic monopoly over all weapons and ships, all the ways to make war in the galaxy. But it wasn’t just war. Hux was free with his money, and he had fleets that combed the galaxy looking for trade agreements and aid situations. He had a small militia force stationed on Binette that responded to the many sightings of pirates through the trade routes in that sector. He also owned at least three of his own pirate ships, used to raid competitors and smugglers. He had contacts in all the cartels as well as many planetary governments, both private and public.

He also, apparently, owned a Senate majority. The legislation inquiries and requests for aid had been the first and most shocking thing he’d come across. The New Republic comms from his Senators and Governors came to him with a priority status, and it had taken time for him to learn what they were, and how to answer and reroute them to others as necessary. The adjustment was short-term - he was not familiar with the current legislation, but it was the thing that interested him most in his files, and he hated having to cede control, even temporarily. Ren refused to have anything to do with these messages when Hux asked him for more information. Trade agreements, peace treaties, new membership, and Republic backing were all researched and directly controlled by him. The only Senators he did not own appeared to be his bitterest enemies, Leia Organa included, who often spoke out publically against Hux and Ren.

And how had the son of Mon Mothma grown into such a life? Hux didn’t know the woman well, but he had to imagine she would be opposed to all of it. Hux's business interests went against every one of her tenets for the New Republic. Part of him was amused by the contrast - Both that Hux could ever be her son, and that the son of the benevolent and idealistic Mon Mothma could create such an Empire right under her nose. But another part of himself was troubled. Mon Mothma was many things, and Hux may not have agreed with the government she built. But how had _this_  happened?

To most of the galaxy, Hux and Ren were both extremely famous public heroes, and the complete history of their relationship was available on the gossip holonet. Hux was well-loved as Mon Mothma’s son, and was apparently still popular for having been rescued from the Imperial academy as a boy. Ren was one of the last Jedi, from a family of the most famous war heroes in the galaxy. They were beloved. They apparently had an estate on a nearby moon that had public tours through the week and popular social events on weekends. There was an upcoming holiday for “Independence Day” approaching, and they allegedly hosted a very exclusive gathering for it. Independence from what, Hux didn't know. Neither the Republic nor the Hosnian system had ever declared independence.

Their popularity reminded Hux of the way he had scoured the holonet for any scrap of news about Ben Solo when he'd been younger. What would he have made of himself, always featured alongside Ben as a friend, and eventually a lover? He would have hated himself. Ben was a hero, a Jedi with powers, but Hux was a traitor to the cause, someone who went against the Imperial remnant and all but made a career of it. _Mon Mothma's son_. A nobody, using Ben and those around him to better his position.

It was worse to know that he probably had. The supposedly candid holos of himself and Ren together had a staged quality, as did several of the incidents and public appearances he'd made. He couldn't deny that he would exploit any advantage he was given, even as it made him ill to think of earning status in the New Republic this way. With  _gossip holos_. 

Ren was his partner in everything. He attended to the meetings that required a personal touch, which seemed to involve the more illicit side of their holdings. Hux appeared to conduct most of his own meetings remotely, or via comm from his well-appointed office. Much like their life aboard the _Finalizer_ , it was Ren that left to travel and do business. Almost any public appearance Hux made outside their suite was done with Ren. This was by Ren’s choice, and not his own. He’d been given more than one lecture about loitering on the balcony, and about why he couldn’t leave the suite by himself.

Hux had finally asked him if he’d hidden behind Ren before his “illness.” Ren had grown sullen and left the room.

What it all added up to was corruption itself, up to and including personal control of the weather on the entire capital planet. Hux and Ren were the very heart and soul of the New Republic. He would have despised himself, had he been in the First Order now. Too corrupt, too powerful. An Emperor in all but name.

Hux had never wanted to be Emperor, not really. And yet, he was accomplishing everything here that he’d wanted for the First Order. This was what they had been working toward after Starkiller. He had it here without all the bureaucracy, the aging Imperials, the Supreme Leader, and all the others whose opinions Hux had to negotiate on a regular basis. Anything Hux wanted, he got. He controlled trade routes, he balanced resources, he had staff working tirelessly to reach out to systems and regulate trade and level the playing field galaxy-wide. There were quotas that Hux appeared to maintain for all planets, for food and health and basic qualities of life. It was all the things the Order had done better than the New Republic, and all of it fully realized. It was done with credits rather than a struggling, emerging military force. And it appeared to be much more effective.

The deeper Hux dug into his own affairs, the more appalled and heartsick he became. How could he be this person, the stereotype of the wealthy, corrupt, power-hungry New Republican? And at the same time, how could he find fault with it? It was everything he’d always wanted. He’d sought this level of control his whole life.

And more recently, he'd sought Ren. And found him. Ren was… everything, in this version of their lives together. He was tolerant of Hux’s “illness,” and fully believed Hux would regain his memories soon. There were difficulties - Ren had switched all the tech in the suite to Aurebesh their second day, after a frustrating argument that boiled down to Ren believing that if Hux “remembered” how to read Aurebesh, he would also “remember” High Galactic if he were forced to read it. Ren argued with him about simple questions, and seemed newly upset each time Hux asked something basic about their lives.

But Ren’s anger boiled down to worry. He was certain Hux was sick, and nothing Hux said, no amount of memory reading or thought sharing, could dissuade him. After three days of endless disbelief and questions, of cancelled meetings and tasks reassigned to their massive staff, Ren had drug Hux to a parade of specialists for a full day, none of whom could find anything wrong. Neither of them was happy at the end of it, but Ren remained hopeful. Hux hated his earnest gazes, his moments of patience where he tried to draw a nonexistent memory out of Hux after yet another question.

Hux stopped trying to tell him about Ventu after two days. Hux’s real memories upset Ren, and it was easier between them when Hux began agreeing that he simply needed his memory back. Softness crept back into Ren’s expression, and small smiles. Hux couldn’t bear to rob this happier version of Ren of hope.

But as far as his trials from Ventu went, this was by far the easiest. It had been exactly what he’d asked for last time - the two of them were together, and the two of them were _good_. Somehow, the ease and peacefulness of everything made Hux think about Ventu more, possibly because he wasn’t able to share Ventu with Ren this time.

He thought about his other Ventu trials, and what had brought him to this point. He still wasn’t sure if he was meant to see this as a “punishment,” or if it was… happening because it needed to, which was what Ren ( _his_  Ren) would have insisted on. But Hux had been an insufferable prick on Ventu that first day, to _his_  Ren, and each repetition had felt more punitive.

But it wasn't just that he'd mistreated Ren that one time. There was much more that Ventu or the Force (which Ren claimed it wasn't - Ren would certainly know) or whatever could object to. He’d taken Ren badly for granted, and had been indifferent and complacent. That first day on Ventu, he’d been insensitive to the religion of Ventu and to Ren’s genuine interest in it. He’d assumed Ren would indulge him in his selfishness, because he always did.

He’d been inflexible when Ren was a Senator. He'd been unwilling to see things from Ren’s perspective, unable to _listen_. Childish. His feelings had been hurt by what he saw as rejection. Ren had been right about that, when Hux met him next.

The next Ren… yes. Hux had left him, had immediately given up on him, and had lacked the patience to help him. That was a betrayal, one that still stung, even after what Ren had done to himself and those people. Hux should have stayed, could have stayed. He would have done what the previous Ren had asked. They could have found a life together. Hux was the only person that could have helped him. He hadn’t. He’d left, he’d purposely betrayed Ren.

He’d also betrayed that first Ren he’d found, that sick Ren, by leaving him behind. That hadn’t been intentional. He would have taken that Ren back to the Order, helped him, given him anything he needed.

And given him straight to Snoke, who would have killed him. Ren had also been right about that, when Hux met him next.

So. Hux was staying this time. He’d learned his lesson. After a lifetime of learning lessons the hard way, he was surprised he’d resisted this one for so long. But hadn't he been rewarded for it, with the life he was in now? And this Kylo Ren was more moderate, reasonable, accommodating… and perhaps cleverer and more independent than the one he knew best.

His Ren was dependent, moody, indecisive, unreasonable, and prone to extremes. All of that made him who he was. But Hux had… cultivated certain characteristics himself, by making all Ren’s decisions for him and steering his life.

Maybe this version of himself hadn’t. He obviously loved Ren deeply. Went to his mother’s house on her birthday. Took happy photos together.

It did bother Hux to be confronted with a version of himself who was a better person, raised by Mon Mothma instead of Brendol Hux. Better, but still a controlling, arrogant asshole. His Ren would laugh, if he were here.

But it didn’t matter anymore, not if he was staying. He could only be himself, and Ren was still Ren. The strange looks Ren gave him, his obvious hope that Hux would “regain” his memories, all of it was temporary. They would learn each other again, Hux knew it.

On the tenth day of Hux’s new life, Ren returned to the suite and entered Hux’s office as he always did - wearing a bright, hopeful expression that inevitably dimmed when confronted with Hux’s dour mood and lack of memories. This was the worst symptom of Ren’s hopefulness, that he believed Hux would recover his lost memories during the day, and that Ren would return home to the Hux that he wanted. Hux hated the inevitable disappointment, and told himself not to resent it. He couldn’t do anything about Ren’s thoughts twining through his own, searching, but he pretended not to notice his expression this time, giving Ren a moment to compose his face before he glanced up from the screens at his desk.

“I took care of Nuoak and Starseed today,” Ren offered, leaning half-through the open doorway, a hand braced above his head on the frame.

Hux took a moment to look him up and down before responding. He dressed much more neatly here, in a fitted tunic belted at the waist over tight-fitting trousers. Apparently Hux favored tight-fitting trousers as well, because his closet was full of them. Ren had told him it was stylish. Hux wondered how Ren stood it all day, especially given the Republic’s disdain for undergarments.

Another fight had earned him genuine underwear, imported from the Outer Rim. Annoyingly, that had upset Ren far more than anything else so far, but Hux could not bear to go without, not even to please Ren.

“Starseed. What an awful name,” Hux replied, making a face and surreptitiously typing the names into his desktop screens. He hoped Ren would think he was updating the files. Really, he had no idea who or what Nuoak and Starseed were. His files revealed they were tech competitors. It was not clear why these particular businesses had needed “taking care of.” Had Ren bought them out? Destroyed them? Either seemed possible.

“Fine. We’ll cross that off the list.” He blanked the screen, looking back up at Ren. “I went through the Senate correspondence myself today. That should be in order now.”

Ren thinned his lips, and the doorframe creaked as his grip tightened on the thin metal frame. There was a hiccup in his thoughts as he masked something. “Jara called today.”

“Jara,” Hux repeated flatly, unable to suppress the anger that tightened the back of his throat. Jara Ren. Still here. Of course she was.

Ren gave him a strange look, obviously picking up Hux's mood, and Hux pushed the anger back down. It was unwarranted. What difference did it make if Jara Ren was here? If Hux had learned anything, it was that he had no need to be jealous of her.

“Jara Lat. CFO, handles billions of credits.” Ren's brow creased. “I can’t tell if you remember her or not. She went to school with us. She hates you.”

Hux frowned. “Did I hate her?”

“No. You just bullied her.”

“Were we friends?”

“Hux. You didn’t have any friends.”

“What about you?”

“I used to beat you up all the time. I knocked you unconscious at least seven times.”

Hux narrowed his eyes. “Really? In a fight?”

Ren grinned, there and gone in a second. “Hux. Was that _dirty talk_? Do you want to hear about all the times you passed out after you’ve had my cock?”

Hux closed his eyes for a moment, exasperated. “No, Ren, I do not want to hear you speculate on how you think your dick gave me amnesia.”

“Then you want to hear about how many times I beat you up when we were younger. That’s almost as good. You saw that holo where you gave me the black eye. We got into a lot of fights.” He got a wistful look on his face. “You don’t remember?”

Hux didn’t like Ren’s gentle prodding. He would always be disappointed. “Were those fights before or after you asked to kiss me?”

Ren rolled his eyes, stepping further into the room. “This is why Jara hates you.”

“Jara hates me because… hm.” Hux considered this. It would be different than it was in the Order. “She thinks I’m a bad person, and a bad influence on you.”

Ren grinned again, and Hux’s heart tightened for a moment at how easy it was, how good it looked on him. “You are.”

Hux thought about saying something, telling him how good he looked. He wondered if the other version of himself would have. The seconds played out between them as he tried to decide. Ren’s face fell, and the moment soured.

Hux sighed. “What did Jara want?” Although Hux could guess, if she was the CFO to their little operation.

“Yeah, she commed me. Asked me why you gave away a billion credits today.”

Hux’s gaze flicked to the blank wall next to Ren. He didn’t want to answer that question. It was because he was ashamed to have it. It was because he noticed that they’d make it back over the next week.

“How did she even notice? There’s more where that came from.”

“Jara’s there to stop us from doing that. She said you overrode it with a thumbprint.”

“I did. We don’t need it, do we?”

“No. But you’re usually more careful.”

Hux stood, something in him still annoyed at having to defend himself against Jara Ren. “We’ll get it back. Tell Jara that I’m ill.”

“I did. You were supposed to check in with her earlier this week. She doesn’t like talking to you, so she was relieved you’ve missed your appointment. But she said to tell you to be more careful with the money.” Ren lounged against the wall, crossing one leg over the other. His feet were bare. “What did you do with a billion credits?”

“I-” He fingered the edge of the antique desk, carved by long-dead Bith and taken from the Imperial Academy. How had it come to be here? He didn’t want to know.

He also didn’t want to find out that this version of himself was miserly, hoarded money, was exactly who he would have found and stolen from and executed before.

“Have you ever been to Coruscant?” he blurted, feeling his face heat, hating that he was hesitating to share this with Ren.

Ren’s face went strange again. “Yeah. We went with Luke, back when we were kids. He took us to see the Imperial Palace, and told us how it used to be the Jedi Temple.”

“We went up to the gardens,” Hux murmured. “They were overgrown.”

Ren’s face brightened. “You remember that?”

Hux remembered the wrong thing. “There are still people on Coruscant.”

“Nah. It’s been evacuated for years.”

“No. I sent. A few transports, to evacuate, and the billion credits was to be split between anyone still living there.”

“Why?” Ren looked startled.

Hux sighed again, meeting his eyes, begging him to understand. “Because it was necessary.”

“They’re your credits.” Ren masked his thoughts for a moment, so Hux couldn’t tell if he really understood. Ren shrugged and covered his surprise with indifference. “You’re usually the one that spends them.”

Hux hated to hear that, and he turned to a different wall, staring at a large screen that was scrolling a newsfeed from the Hapes cluster.

It was fine. He was who he was, and it didn’t matter what had come before. He just needed to act as he would in the Order. Maybe he could convince Ren to come with him to the Unknown Regions and Wild Space to do what they used to do. He had his own fleet that explored, but it-

“Hey, have you worked out yet today?”

Hux blinked, realigning his thoughts, turning back around to face Ren. “No.” He should. He hated being stuck in his office all day, and he was already gaining weight from the rich meals and lack of walking around a Star Destroyer. “Do you want to spar?”

Ren shook his head, grinning. “I want to go swimming.”

“Swimming?” Hux’s stomach clenched. “Where?”

“We… have a pool.” Ren gestured vaguely at their feet.

Hux had forgotten about the second floor to their suite. Shame prevented him from exploring it. Ren’s workout room was down there. Last week, he’d thought about suggesting Ren use the hot tub with him, but he’d been worried that asking was somehow out of character.

He thought of their trip to Dac, and how good it had been. How this version of Ren didn’t share that memory with him. This Ren didn’t know he couldn’t swim. The disparity was once again upsetting.

Ren’s face fell as he sensed Hux getting _emotional_  about fucking swimming. He was tired of everything being an emotional trap.

“I’d really rather spar,” Hux suggested quickly, trying to move beyond the awkwardness.

“You love swimming. We both love swimming,” Ren insisted, growing more agitated. Not angry, not like Ren did, just… _upset_. Hux didn’t know what to do with this Ren’s hurt feelings, his disappointment.

He ran his fingers along his desktop again, struggling to respond. Ren loved sparring, mostly because it always ended with the two of them wrestling each other to the mat and fucking, which was really the only type of exercise Hux enjoyed. Ren would sometimes let him win the fights, though Hux was aware that he did it intentionally, hoping that Hux would fuck him after. Sometimes it made Hux so happy that he did.

“We… do that when we swim,” Ren said slowly, his brows lowering, obviously picking up on the lustful edge of Hux’s thoughts. “We swim laps, and then we have contests, and we blow each other on the deck. If you want.”

The disparity between the physical acts, a sparring match versus something as innocuous as swimming, pulled at him. He started shaking his head, and Ren’s disappointment turned more sullen.

“You love swimming,” he insisted again, taking another step closer, his fists bunching at his sides. Hux’s gaze fell to one of his hands, the one that should have been scarred and wasn’t, the one that Hux had fixed up himself, but his senses were suddenly overtaken by a vision, courtesy of Ren-

_Hux is laid out on the light gray duracrete of their pool deck. His hair is dark, saturated with water that stains the deck below his head. His hair’s a mess, and Hux would hate how young he looked that way. His cheeks are lightly flushed, his eyes are closed. Ren runs his hands down Hux’s body, taking in the softness of his skin, warm even after the chill of the water. His thumbs snag on Hux’s swim shorts, white and tiny and tight, just for Ren, his erection obvious through the thin fabric and threatening to emerge above the waistband. His eyes stray up to Hux’s navel and the trail of red hair there. He can’t help himself. He bends over, kisses him there, feels the softness of his belly and the damp skin below his lips. Dark hair curtains his vision, and Hux’s hands come up and tangle in it. He’s always loved that Hux can’t hide how much he thinks about touching his hair, how much he loves running his fingers through it. He kisses up Hux’s chest gently, reverently. Hux doesn’t deserve anything less. He takes his time when he gets to his collarbones. He licks the hollow of his throat, traces his tongue up Hux’s neck, tasting Hux’s pulse and his sweat and the clean pool water. Hux’s eyes are open now, blue, and his expression is fond, the rarity of it makes Ren's breath hitch. Hux is pulling his hair harder, insistent, leaning forward as if Ren isn’t moving fast enough. Hux kisses him, soft at first, and then more urgently, Hux’s tongue tasting him in turn. Stars, he has this every day, and every day it’s still too good to be true. He wants Hux so much that the emotion threatens to choke him, sticks in his throat and chest, makes him-_

“Ren,” Hux interrupted sharply, closing his eyes briefly and dispelling the vision. “Was that really necessary?”

The corner of Ren’s mouth pulled down. “It was a memory we shared. Together.”

“That was specifically _your_  memory. Have we not had a conversation about forcing me to fantasize about myself?”

They'd had the conversation before. Hux would laugh, it was such a uniquely Ren thing to do. But the poolside memory he’d just seen was nothing like the one Ren had shown him before.

 

  
_“Hux,_ please _. I’m begging. I don’t beg.”_

_Hux shot him a withering look. The edges of Ren’s lust were driving him to distraction. It was making his own cock throb in his pants, but Hux wanted no part of it. Ren was leaning over his desk, clad in only a pair of tight-fitting pants, his hair unbound, a pleading look on his face. He had invaded Hux’s office, leaning into Hux’s space, making sure Hux got a good look at his biceps and chest._

_It wasn’t going to work today. “I need to finish reviewing these Trooper reports, Ren. The allotment decisions are behind, pending my approval. As I’ve said. Many times.”_

_“You’ll need to stop at some point.”_

_“I’m perfectly capable of working through the night, as you know.”_

_“Everyone hates you the next day.”_

_“So you’ve said before.” It was a sad attempt to get Hux to bed. Hux wasn’t_ that _much of a tyrant. He gestured dismissively, annoyed, turning back to his holos. “Leave. You’re only slowing me down.”_

 _“_ I need you _. You promised.” His voice had a pleading edge to it that Hux hated to hear. He slammed his palms on his desk, glaring back up at Ren._

_“Your hand and your memory work well enough, don’t they? Leave me, and guard your thoughts. I don’t need an erection to do this.”_

_“Just let me-”_

_“_ Ren _.” Hux’s voice had an edge of warning in it. Ren’s glared, his thoughts making it clear that he would not back down. But this was something that Hux would not be moved on._

_But then Ren's expression changed. He lit up, and it was obvious that he’d had some sort of awful idea. Hux opened his mouth and stood, fed up with this, wishing he had Ren’s ability to magically eject a person from the room._

_Before he could get the protest out, he was overtaken by an all-consuming vision - touch, smell, sight, all of it as if Hux was living it himself. But the perspective was wrong. He could see himself above himself in bed, wreathed in light. His hair was loose, falling wildly around his face, contorted in anger. He could feel his hands pressing into his chest. Angry, persistent. His thighs were squeezing his own hips, the touch of his own flesh hot and slick. He could feel his own dick, hard, throbbing, paradoxically trapped by himself as he ground into it with his own erection._

_“Brat,” he snarled down, his fingers moving up to the collarbones he possessed in this vision. He leaned in closer, his own hair draping down around both their faces. “You want my attention, you have it. What are you going to do with it?”_

_A wave of arousal crashed through him, so hard it nearly made him dizzy. He loved it when he was angry, when he was able to push such_ emotion _from him, when he normally kept everything so hidden. A hand reached up, sliding along a narrow thigh, feeling the bristling of short hairs beneath his rough palm. Fingers reached around, one dancing at the entrance perched just above his dick. Hot, waiting._

_“Will you let me open you slowly, or are you going to do it yourself today?” The voice wasn’t his, too low. Slow was good, he loved slow. Watching that narrow ass up and presented, or having the legs thrown over his own shoulders, the flushed length of Hux’s dick and his tight balls on display as he let a finger dip low, then enter. Hux always closed his eyes for it, but Hux’s skin would get so hot under his palm, which he kept against his chest, over his heart, so he could feel exactly how affected Hux was._

_He turned his head to the side, closed his eyes. The urge to enter Hux, to be close, was so strong. He wanted Hux to ride him, wanted even more for Hux to take him, but he never did that. Stars, he just_ wanted _Hux, anything, anything for the two of them to be closer. Together. When they were together, nothing else mattered-_

_“Kylo Ren,” Hux shouted, closing his eyes, bending low over his desk, dispelling the vision. When he opened them, Ren had a shit-eating grin on his face._

_“Was that supposed to make me more inclined to fuck you?”_

_Ren shrugged. “Sure. We’re already in the middle of it, and you’re not working. Can’t we keep going?”_

_“Ren, that was_ from your perspective. _Do you think I’m outrageously attracted to myself?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_Ren’s face was so serious that Hux nearly laughed. “I’m not. Wouldn’t I be more attracted to your body, in that fantasy?”_

_“I think it’s sex you’re attracted to.”_

_There was some truth to that. “You are normally involved.”_

_“Normally?”_

_Hux was too annoyed to indulge Ren in his petty and unwarranted insecurity. He sat down, making the dismissive gesture again. “Your little tricks aside, I am still too busy to play with you. Take your vision and go elsewhere.”_

_“Did you like it, though?” Ren leaned further over the desk, his chest taking up a good portion of Hux’s peripheral vision. It was annoying._

_“Think about it. Do you think I want to know what it’s like to kiss myself? Finger myself open? Look at my own hard cock?”_

_“Do you?”_

_“No!” He was still shouting, still too loud. He stood again, fed up, clearing his screens with an exaggerated gesture. “Don’t ever do it again. Congratulations, you’ve driven me from my own office.” He walked over to the door, turning back to glower over his shoulder. Ren was sulking, leaning against Hux’s desk with his arms crossed over his bare chest, obviously thinking a final display of his body might entice Hux._

_It didn’t. Hux left to find a vacant conference room._

_Ren punished him by fantasizing about sucking Hux’s cock, pushing it into Hux’s thoughts. He kept choking. Hux felt like he was sucking and choking on his own cock, diving face-first into his own ginger pubic hair. It was a nightmare. He got the sense that Ren was masturbating to it. He was nearly halfway across the ship before distance overcame Ren’s persistent ability to broadcast into his head._

  
It hadn’t been Ren’s attraction that Hux objected to in the visions. It was the odd vulnerability, and he couldn't tell whether Ren realized he was showing it to Hux. His persistent desire to do the blowjob correctly to please Hux, the way he held his hand over Hux's heart. Or even now, in the way his adoration nearly made him sick in the memory he’d shared at the pool, the naked way he had offered his attraction, physical and otherwise, to Hux.

There was still the disparity between the two visions. His Ren had cherished a fantasy about Hux being cruel, where this Ren treasured a passive, appreciative version.

Hux could do the latter. But the cruel version was him, too. One that this Ren was perhaps unfamiliar with, or wouldn’t want.

He made the same dismissive gesture to Ren now, aware that Ren could see all of it. The memory, Hux’s insecurities.

“Did it happen like that?”

Ren looked away, to the large holoscreen mounted to the wall, as if it could offer answers or solutions. Perhaps it frequently did. But not today.

“Your memories. You lost your memories. The ones you have now... Those never happened. You keep worrying about it.” Ren turned back to him. “You shouldn’t. That’s not you.”

Hux clenched his jaw. He wanted to protest, to shout, to defend their memories together, to tell Ren exactly how much of himself it all was.

But Ren was in front of him, disappointed again. Because of Hux. He couldn’t press the point, when leaving it would make Ren so much happier.

“How did it happen, Ren? The first time you showed me a fantasy like that?” Ren liked telling intimate stories like this, though it sometimes upset both of them. Ren thought that telling the stories might make Hux remember. Hux knew better, but tried to hide it.

“We were a lot younger. I was fifteen.” Ren turned back to Hux, defiant, as if waiting to hear Hux deny this. “I did it by accident, showed you what I liked about you. You asked if I could see it too, the same thing. Me, from your perspective, when we were… uh, when we were making out, or touching each other.” Ren grew embarrassed. Hux wasn’t sure why. Both versions of himself had kissed Ren. He gestured impatiently for Ren to continue, and Ren’s annoyance spiked. “You liked it, and so did I. So we… did that. I made you think you were me, and I saw myself as you. You said it was a good way to exercise my Force powers.”

Hux rolled his eyes. “I’m sure I did.” Curious, he remembered the first time they’d kissed. “Were you… able to enter other’s thoughts at the time? Mine?”

“We’ve always been able to do that.”

“Always?”

Ren shrugged, still looking embarrassed, his ears red below his loose hair. His eyes darted to the Hapes news. “I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t see what you were thinking. You said you liked playing with me when we were younger because you could read my thoughts too. My uncle said it was a Force bond. My mother encouraged it, until she started to hate you.”

Hux snorted, relaxing, leaning a hip against his desk. “How long did that take?”

Ren smiled faintly. “She gave you the benefit of the doubt until you were ten. I think she only pretended that long for Mon.”

Hux returned the faint smile. He liked the thought of Leia holding a grudge against a ten-year-old. He wanted to ask for more, but Hux could feel Ren getting more upset the more they talked about these memories.

So he tried to change the subject. He could only think of the exercising, the meetings that he’d cancelled. All the things he was still struggling to understand. None of them would cheer Ren up.

The conversation died, the silence stretched between them again. Ren’s unhappiness grew, as did Hux’s frustration. He never struggled to make conversation with _Ren_. It was awful. He could feel Ren’s hesitance in his own thoughts, struggling to avoid the same issues he was.

“I want to exercise,” Hux forced out finally. “What do I normally do to exercise?”

Ren’s expression darkened again. “You go swimming.”

“Ren, _I can’t swim_.” It came out before he could stop it. He’d been trying to hold it back. These fundamental differences - that Hux couldn’t swim, couldn’t read High Galactic - tended to set Ren off worse than the missing memories, or the mistakes Hux made in their little Empire together.

Ren took a step forward, and the whole argument played out in Hux’s mind. Ren would insist that he go swimming, that it would come back to him if he tried. Ren was always hopeful that doing things would bring back Hux’s memories about them, that it would be the first step in turning Hux back into the person he should be.

Hux stiffened, felt himself come to attention, couldn’t stop it. “I’m going to exercise by myself.” Numbly, he took a step forward, and then another. Ren stood still, watching him warily, his thoughts guarded.

“Excuse me.” He passed Ren, not looking at him, hating the need to flee the room rather than have the difficult conversation. Hating that he had to _excuse_  himself.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
Hux went down to the lower floor, pausing only a moment when he realized he had fled to Ren’s personal workout suite. But he was angry and frustrated, and that was exactly what this room was for. Or had been, on the _Finalizer_. Hux doubted that Ren would disturb him.

Without even bothering to change from the tight gray pants and formal tunic he’d worn in his office, he approached a free-standing bag and began punching mindlessly, once again allowing himself to fall into the physical routine that had been conditioned into him since he was a child. Right right, left, duck, block, left. Faster and faster. He felt the tunic pull at his shoulders, and it was just like the ill-fitting uniforms he'd had in the program.

The memory made him even angrier. He undid his belt and tore off the tunic, frustrated, tossing them both to the side as he continued the routine, barechested, trying to lose himself in muscle memory, push himself physically to force his anger away.

He hated that he had to come down here, that getting away from Ren was the point of this exercise. He’d just spent a not insignificant amount of time finding Ren. And he was already so isolated here. Previously, he’d moved around his ship constantly on any given day - the bridge, the public offices, the meeting rooms, his private office. He talked to, instructed, and conversed with dozens of people daily, both in person and via holocalls. He often did not stop for meals, as eating had never been pleasurable to him, even when the food tasted like something.

Now he had rich food and solitude. He had nowhere to go but his private office, and no idea what he was supposed to say to people he was having his holocalls with. He’d been out with Ren to a business meeting yesterday, and it had been a disaster. Ren had conducted the meeting himself after Hux had blundered badly.

And the only other thing outside the walls of his lavishly outfitted rooms was Republic City. He’d destroyed it. He’d stood in front of the Starkiller beam and watched it finalize the plans he’d made for the First Order, in a permanent way that did not include this planet. The city that he was now running. The city in which he was the wealthiest individual.

He brought his leg up into a kick, sending a throbbing pain through his calf and ankle. He was out of practice. The pain helped him realign his thoughts. He did not want to contemplate the way he was growing fat in his rich New Republic suite.

He’d always considered himself solitary, smarter and better than the other Officers in the First Order. He’d always had to be in order to survive. But if his recent trials had taught him anything, it was that being alone was a foreign concept to him. He was used to having people around him. Talking to them, giving orders, observing them work and being proud of the results.

He apparently had tens of thousands of people currently in his employ, but they were not _his_  people. He had not grown up with them, he had not trained and conditioned them. He didn’t even know what their fucking jobs were. Except for Jara Ren, who handled his money and tattled to Ren when he tried to give it all away. His newfound and unwarranted jealousy twisted inside him. Why couldn’t it have been Bariss, or Unamo, or even that wretched relic Hask-

He paused, gripping the punching bag. Jara Ren was here. And it wasn’t as if the others had ceased to exist.

He gripped the bag until his hands ached.

He could retrieve them, all the ones that had been recruited after they’d gone into exile. Hux remembered where every single one of his favorites was. Not the cities, maybe, but he could go to the planets and search, and he’d know them. He’d bring them back, set them up in Republic City, and train them to-

Well. It didn’t matter. They’d be his staff. It would. That might help. They would be his people, no matter what. He’d know them. Like he knew Ren.

He wiped the sweat from his forehead, then rested it against the bag.

It was a place to start. He could move forward from there.

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
Ren left before Hux woke the next morning. The avoidance stung, but he decided that he’d use the day to change this life into what he needed it to be. He cancelled or delegated all his scheduled appointments for the day, turned off his comms and holocalls, then went through his personal files again, making plans.

He had access to a transport that would be sufficient for traveling and recruiting. It could also carry small craft (that he had developed, apparently - these were better than TIEs, faster and lighter, and had different modules for weapons, hyperspace travel, and smuggling), and might be useful for entering more isolated areas. He scheduled and requisitioned the necessary supplies for an extended voyage in the transport, giving himself a month to find everyone he was looking for. He bought a building to house them in just outside the city center, because he could. He paid for and made all the arrangements to have it outfitted with everything he would need - facilities and amenities for his staff, living quarters, offices, equipment. It would all be finished by the time he came back.

He also cleared Ren’s schedule, because Ren would come with him. Ren would not be happy about the cancelled appointments. Ren was already troubled by Hux’s perceived lack of interest, or memory, of their work life. But Hux would not leave without Ren for so long, nor would Ren let him take this kind of trip by himself.

And once this was over, he would make an effort to enjoy his new life. To be whoever it was he was supposed to be. He would try, for Ren.

Guilt curled in his stomach when he realized their situations had been reversed - previously, it had been Ren seeking Hux’s attention and approval. Hux had made much less time for him over the years, particularly as Starkiller reached completion. Hux had denied the attention, and Ren had stopped looking for it. They had still slept together, made time for work-related meetings, and occasionally been intimate. It hadn’t been awkward. Merely a… growing apart.

Here, it was Ren who was avoiding Hux, leaving to attend to work tasks that Hux was avoiding, cancelling, and blowing off. Ren who came back and lectured Hux on not doing his job.

Hux exhaled, clenching his hands into fists atop the warm screens on his desktop. He was incredibly frustrated. Disappointed in himself, with no immediate way to fix it. He wanted to go back to the exercise suite again, exhaust himself, stop thinking. He didn’t.

Hours had passed as he made his plans, and he hadn’t spoken to a single person, merely sat alone in his silent office. He hadn’t even commed Ren. He was too isolated. He’d had enough of that during his… last lifetime, before he’d found WS-19557 again. At least there he’d had Phasma, the sound of the ship around him. He’d gone planetside into the small towns. He’d spoken to Leia Organa, and the Crymorah syndicate, and many other people in the years he’d spent finding Ren. It wasn’t like this.

He’d also had his goal - Ren. He’d wanted Ren, and that had sustained him. He’d craved Ren’s company as the months and years stretched on. He’d spoken to others, but he’d keenly missed what he’d taken for granted about Ren. Ren was someone he could always talk to, confide in, vent his frustrations to. Ren amused him, Ren annoyed him. Ren knew everything about him, and forgave him for all of it. Hux had sought that out, had wanted it back very badly.

Now he had it, and was somehow estranged from it. He was locked in a completely silent apartment, in a life which was better and kinder than anything he could have imagined. And he was struggling to find a way to connect with Ren.

He looked up the the access he had to his personal fleet, then brought up the security holofeed from the bridge of his flagship, the _Constancy_. He switched the feed to the main holoscreen wall and sound system in the office, then killed the visual. The room filled with the hum of starship engines, small conversation, boots pacing back and forth on the deck. Hands against consoles.

It relaxed Hux. He tapped his fingers idly on the desk, eyes closed, then stilled his hand, spreading his fingers. He opened his eyes to study his fingers, pale and ungloved against the dark screens and wood of the desktop, hesitated, bunched his hand into a fist. Then, quickly, he tapped a panel, bringing up the holos of himself and Ren again. He needed to get used to who he was now.

He watched patiently as the holos cycled. He and Ren in a vintage Republic-era speeder together, Ren piloting. Another of Ren grinning, surrounded by several very small, furry aliens that Hux did not recognize. Ren and Hux together, in a prototype for one of the transports that Hux had admired earlier, both wearing black helmets and goggles and flight suits, sitting back to back. Ren and Hux’s wedding again, the two of them so happy. Ren, Hux, and Jara together, posing awkwardly, looking very young.

These were Hux’s holos, so when he appeared, it was always with another person, usually Ren. He was grinning in more than a few, even as he got older. He didn’t know he could look that happy. He’d… have to try. For Ren. He obviously found this life satisfying, had built it himself from the ground up.  As Mon Mothma's son.

Right. Mon Mothma’s son had somehow developed a secret Second Empire. He didn’t want to ask Ren how that happened, so he did a search for Mon Mothma’s name through his files. This turned up official documents - legal papers about their relationship, public appearances they’d done together, and many references to the way she’d written the laws that Hux was obviously breaking. But that wasn’t what Hux wanted to know.

He sighed. Did a search for ‘mother.’

That turned up more in Hux’s personal files, locked behind several levels of security. Recorded holocalls he’d kept. Holos of the two of them, taken by someone else (Leia, or Mon Mothma’s second, someone named Velus), of Hux at different ages. Correspondence from when Hux had gone to a secondary academy, away from home.

The holos were telling. Earlier holos were the kind of drivel he’d expected from the New Republic - happy holos of Mon Mothma and Hux together for things like their personal anniversaries ( _birthdays_ \- he remembered how incredulous he’d been when Ren had tried to explain). There were many holos from planetside visits, where they had visited natural sights or eaten together with humans or aliens. Frequently Ren or Leia was with them. Everyone was always happy.

There was nothing stiff or formal about any of it. In the oldest holos, when Hux was very young, his poses did appear awkward and forced, his discomfort obvious. But he'd relaxed significantly over time. In his later teens and twenties, there were more of these holos for every event. The elderly Mon Mothma looked just as happy as Hux did. There were many holos of just Mon Mothma that were obviously taken by Hux. She had a particular look on her face that gave it away. As serene and professional as she appeared in most holos, she always looked genuinely happy with Hux.

His childhood in the New Republic had lacked for nothing. He had Ren his entire life, and a mother who made time for him, who loved and supported him. He never went hungry or cold. He went to a regular school. Developed his own interests, which were very similar to what he did in the Order. But this version of him could swim, probably wasn’t afraid of suffocating, and hadn’t committed the worst atrocity in galactic history. He also, incidentally, probably hadn’t been cursed by some unknown power at the end of the galaxy.

Or maybe he had. He wasn't here now, after all.

He read through correspondence from his time at a finishing academy, where he’d studied sociology (which seemed nonspecific and very Republican. Of _course_  he’d studied sociology). The academy hadn’t been on-planet, and he’d written Mon Mothma regularly. She’d wanted him to come back to a Junior Senator position and work with her. He’d wanted to, but had taken issue with her nonviolence policies. Mon Mothma, patiently and without fail, explained to him why they were necessary. Hux fought her. Each message still began with an admission that Hux missed seeing Mon Mothma, or vice versa, and they often spoke of the next time they’d meet. There were terrible, lengthy debates. They always ended with ‘I love you, I miss you. I look forward to next time.’

Hux turned off the screens again, and thought of Brendol. Brendol had rarely sent him anything but a terse holomessage to summon Hux in front of him. Brendol had freely beaten Hux until Rae Sloane had stopped him, and then he’d had other students do it until Sloane was killed and the abuse resumed. He’d never been good enough for Brendol. Any disagreement, any wrong word, would cause suffering. The Stormtrooper and conditioning programs had eventually belonged to both of them, but Brendol had stolen all the credit, and frequently stole, covered, or denied Hux’s best ideas. Hux had hated him enough to eventually kill him. Well, Phasma had. Hux had simply agreed with her.

That’s what a father was to Hux. His father’s vendettas and disappointments were personal, though the physical abuse and hardships were not uncommon for all the cadets during the exile years. Serious threats to his life were not usually his father’s fault, simply the living conditions aboard the derelict ships in their old fleet.

But despite his acrimonious relationship with his father, he still couldn’t believe Brendol would ever have used him as a human shield against the Republic. Brendol valued children too much for that. Even Hux.

Well. He had. And Mon Mothma had been his mother. Despite developing an exact opposite stance to hers, and eventually undermining her entire system of government after her death, Hux had loved her deeply. And she him.

Hux looked further. He had withdrawn from the academy in the months before her death, had married Ren weeks before she passed so she could witness it. After the illness had finally taken her life, he’d done nothing but campaign and plan her memorial for six months.

Then he’d started enacting his visions. Mon Mothma’s family (him - apparently Palpatine had seen to the rest of her relatives on Chandrila) received a government pension, and Hux had received several monetary gifts from planetary governments after her passing. He’d used the money to fund research for medical tech. He sold it to buyers, and gave it away to planets that needed it. He’d paid significantly to eradicate the disease that had killed Mon Mothma.

From there, he began funding shipbuilding development and construction companies to control modern and legitimate shipping, to tip that in his favor and stop exploitation and blockades throughout the galaxy. From there, the rest of it. Weapons. Technology. Agriculture. The Senate. All of it.

But that had all been after she died. Before that, he had been her beloved, devoted son. Armitage Hux.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“If you find what you’re looking for here-”

“Then we move on to the next location,” Hux pre-empted Ren’s question, leading him down the transport’s ramp and onto the hard-packed surface of Jakku. Hux hated coming back here. He’d hated it when he was a boy, and he hated it even more when he’d seen it again in holos just before Starkiller had been fired. He glanced over his shoulder. Ren would have been absolutely apoplectic, had he remembered his own trip to Jakku.

“Remembered _what?_ ” Ren asked snappishly. He swept his hair back with one hand. Ren was wearing black, because he still didn’t know any better in the desert - it was a conversation they’d had any time Ren went to a desert, both enroute to Jakku and many times in the past. On Jakku, Hux knew the sun would sear them both to a crisp in minutes. Hux had worn goggles and a light gray tunic with a hood to shield himself from the sun and blowing grit. It was hot. Miserable.

It felt right. Hux felt the crushing weight of expectation begin to lift. His mouth twitched, and he turned, leaving the primitive open-air spaceport and venturing into the tiny village full of sagging tents and ramshackle masonry buildings.

“You came here looking for your uncle,” Hux said, in answer to Ren’s question. “It didn’t go well. Everything bad that happened after that was because of a map that was smuggled away from an encampment you raided.”

“Right.” _More false memories_ , Ren did not say. Hux continued.

“I was here when I was a boy, too. When we fled Arkanis, this was the first planet we stopped at. We had a battle against the Republic just outside Jakku’s orbit, and most of the Imperial fleet and one of the last Super Star Destroyers went down on the surface. I hated Jakku. It was hot, so different from Arkanis, and we weren’t well-provisioned. We went into exile from here.” The sand crunched under his boots as he surveyed the village, practically sensed the eyes on him from within the buildings. They would stand out because of their clothes and their off-world arrival. If he remembered correctly, there wasn’t much shipping traffic on Jakku. And many of the villages on Jakku were nocturnal, so they'd be more noticeable in the thinner daytime foot traffic.

He’d successfully avoided all desert planets for over twenty years after leaving this one. He was annoyed at breaking his streak.

“I’m glad we’re doing this,” he told Ren conversationally, as he heard him stomping behind. “It was a beginning then, and I think it’s a beginning now. And after what happened-”

Two years ago? One year ago? Five years ago? He hadn’t bothered to check the year. He supposed that would settle it. The idea that the passage of time was different for him now was monstrous, made fear claw up his throat, locked his speech for a moment. He kept his face neutral and willed himself to indifference.

“Well. This will be over soon,” he managed to tell Ren, still casual. “And it will be easier for me after. Even if I don’t… regain my memories.”

He strolled up to the largest building, situated in the center of town. There was a line of three or four beings leading up to a single service window, along with a set of rough tables under an awning nearby that seemed to be the first stop for the junkers at the service window. The junkers wore tattered beige robes, scavenged uniforms, and collections of mis-matched tools at their belts. They were very young and very old, and none in between. Hux wondered what happened to the others.

Many of the junkers had their faces completely covered. They were all solitary, sitting apart from one another and silent. Some had nets containing large pieces of salvage. He and Ren were together, empty-handed except for the single, nearly luxurious weapons holstered below their cloaks. Ren was even more out of place, dressed in black and bareheaded. Their fair complexions were garnering stares.

Still, Hux waited in the line for his turn, not feeling particularly threatened by the beaten-down scavengers of Jakku. Eventually, he stepped up to the window, taking in the alien that was servicing everybody. He vaguely remembered that he had been a contact when they’d attempted to lock down the Jakku settlements while looking for Ren's map. He was a big humanoid, with a large flat nose and small eyes. His arms and hands were thick, he towered over Ren and Hux, and his skin was pale, Hux assumed from sitting in his booth and scalping the junkers all day.

“I don’t recall your name,” Hux offered honestly.

“Unkar Plutt,” the alien introduced himself in a deep, slow voice. “If you have credits, I can help you.”

This seemed like a bold statement. Hux found he couldn’t help himself. “Help me with what?”

“What do you need? Parts? A ship? Weapons? Slaves?”

Hux pursed his lips with distaste. He hadn’t realized there was trafficking on Jakku. He glanced at Ren, then back at the alien. “Information. I’m looking for a man named Archex.”

The alien made a clicking noise with his mouth, but otherwise showed no other emotion that Hux could decipher. “If you have credits, I can help you.”

The trafficking comment still stung, and Hux did not feel like paying this being, regardless of all the credits he had to waste. “Perhaps you'll do me a favor instead?”

“No. No favors. Only contract jobs.”

Hux shrugged, unaffected. “My partner can use the Force. You can tell me, or he can take it from you. You won’t want him to do that.”

“Partner,” Ren muttered. “We’ve been married for ten years.”

Hux looked over to see Ren’s scowl, then turned back to the alien. “ _Husband_ , then.” He hated the word, hated the way the Republican term sat on his tongue. But if that’s what Ren wanted, it was an easy concession to make. “He can be quite… indelicate when he interrogates people.”

 _Right_? Hux asked, between the two of them, his eyes staying on the alien as he evaluated Ren's mood. _You still interrogate people here, correct?_

 _Are you kidding_? Ren seemed annoyed, shifting and moving closer until their shoulders touched. _How do you think all those businesses sold to us_?

 _Stars Ren, that’s barbaric._  Though Hux was pleased by the news. Ren had always been quite skilled at hearing what he wanted from others. _I’d worried Republican living had made you soft._

“Republican living,” Ren repeated aloud, bitterly. _There’s nothing soft or Republican about what we do_.

“No Republic out here,” the alien returned, misunderstanding Ren’s comment. He looked back to Hux. “No Jedi, either. Get someone else to buy that story. Good luck finding one man.”

Ren took a step back and extended his arm, palm out and facing the alien. Hux smirked as the alien’s face abruptly smashed into the countertop. The alien made an alarming high-pitched noise, and when he yanked his head back up and took a step back into the darkness of the building, there was a rivulet of purple blood running from his darkened nose.

“How did you do that?” he asked in a nasal tone, voice muffled by the hand he held over his face. Hux searched his expression for fear, surprise. He was sure that Ren’s magical violence had been intimidating, but he could not read the alien’s expression.

“How do you think?” Hux asked, placing his gloved hands on the counter and leaning forward. “Would you like another demonstration, or will you tell me about Archex?”

When the alien paused for too long, Ren pulled him back to the window and slammed his face into the counter three more times. It had been a long time since he’d seen Ren indulge in petty violence, and Hux found that it affected him the same as it ever had. He wanted Ren, he had him. He loved him. He glanced over, appreciating the concentration in his expression, the hard look in his eye, the thin line of his mouth.

Ren shifted, likely reading the appreciation in Hux’s thoughts. Hux offered it freely, though he kept it off his face.

“Archex,” he stated simply, leaning in closer to the alien’s bloody face.

“Archex,” the alien repeated. “Junker. Saw him yesterday, gave him three portions for a hyperspanner.”

“I don’t care about his income level, I care about where he lives. I wish to speak to him.”

“I don’t know! The junkers keep their hideouts to themselves. They’d raid each other in a second if they knew where the hideouts were. He comes and goes from the west. He must have one other person with him who doesn’t scavenge. He brings more stuff, the past couple years, and tries to get more portions for it. If he’s out west, and he comes here, means he’s in between here and Sybart.”

Hux rolled his eyes. “And how many kilometers of desert does that narrow our search to?”

“Ninety-two.”

“Ninety-two. That’s it? You can’t get any more precise?”

“No.”

Ren slammed his face into the counter again.

“No, I swear!” The alien insisted, more surly this time, his breath wheezing out through his swollen nose. “He’s nobody. I don’t keep tabs on him. He’s not the worst of the junkers, but he’s not worth my time, either.”

Hux thinned his lips. He had a hard time believing that. Still, this was a different life. He waved dismissively, turning from the alien without another word.

Ren followed him, sliding an arm around Hux's waist and leaning in close to his ear, exhaling a breath and causing Hux to shiver despite the heat.

“Like that, did you?”

Hux batted him away, continuing on a steady path to the ship. “I don’t like the desert.” He felt a wave of bitterness wash through his thoughts, and quickly backpedaled. “I did like that. Immensely. It’s comforting to know that you are still… an effective negotiator.”

 _Cruel. Brutal. Casual with it. No thought for the victim, once they deserve it._  He didn’t dare say it aloud, because these traits had been mostly unknown to Ben Solo, who merely possessed a temper, poor judgment, and curiosity. Ren had developed all that in the First Order, and Hux was surprised the skills were still honed here.

“You’re the best,” Ren said in a flat, unimpressed voice.

“I like it. You’re always somehow yourself.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It won’t mean anything, once we find who I’m looking for.”

“I’m not scanning every mind on this planet-”

“You don’t have to strain yourself,” Hux said, leaning against the shaded side of their transport and surveying the sun-baked remnants of the outpost. “I wasn’t planning on having you Force-search every being in the desert.”

Ren looked at him suspiciously, crossing his arms and stepping into the shadow of the ship.  He'd been sunburned across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. It was bizarrely charming. “You would.”

“Not today. Archex hasn’t been here in two days, and took three portions of food. If he has someone else living with him, he must be getting desperate. He’ll come to us.”

“Or he’s dead.”

“Or he’s dead,” Hux agreed.

“And how will we know that?”

Hux looked at the outpost, weighing how badly he wanted this. “Two days,” he said reluctantly. “We’ll wait two days. If he doesn’t show, we’ll go to the next planet.”

Ren groaned and sat cross-legged on the ground at Hux’s feet, leaning against one of the ship’s supports. “And you’re sure you need this? You promise we can get back to work once this is over?”

Ren had an earnest look on his face. Hux nodded, then looked back through the outpost. “I need them. Once I have them, I’ll feel more myself.”

“They aren’t you, Hux. That’s not you.”

He couldn’t make Ren understand. Ren would do this thing for him, but he would never understand. “This is the last time. I’ll be me after this, and won’t speak of the differences again.”

It wasn’t quite what either of them wanted. But it would have to be good enough. Hux would make sure it was.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

  
Hux nearly didn’t recognize Archex when he finally appeared, dragging a bag of rusted salvage parts into the outpost as the sun sank below the horizon. Archex had always been a big man, but this version was wiry and sickly, even more so than they had been as children. He looked much older than he was, skin sun-blasted and creased, burned and healed over and over again. His dark eyes shone through a clear pair of goggles, and his beige wrap hung off his frame in rags. His hair was long and matted, and he had a scar across one cheek.

If Hux was honest, it was the lack of red that made it hard to identify him.

But his expression was the same, as was his gait - determined, singleminded. He demanded that the alien keep the trading post open for him, and then demanded more than the three-quarter portion the alien wanted to give him. The alien slammed the shutter in his face without taking the salvage, and Archex stared at the bars over the window. Hux hoped he would break in, but since this was Jakku, he probably wouldn’t. He would likely just drag his sack back out into the desert and starve.

Instead of waiting for the scene to grow more tragic, Hux hoisted his stiff, sweaty frame away from the transport and crossed the distance, rapidly approaching Archex from behind.

“Your name is Archex,” he stated. Not a question.

The man turned, assessing Hux. He had a particular way of doing this that was good-natured and value-free. But he was an expert at spotting strengths and weaknesses. Hux, beneath his cloak, put a hand to his blaster. Ren stepped behind him. Cardinal’s eyes went to Ren briefly, then away, as if he could assess Ren in an instant - all strengths, no weaknesses. Ren’s weaknesses belonged exclusively to Hux.

Hux’s belonged largely to Brendol, which Cardinal would know. Though the man in front of him wouldn’t.

Using Cardinal’s old name, his birth name, was a surreal experience. All the cadets, including the Imperial children, had received numbers in exile. In every official sense, the numbers were their names. They used their given names only between themselves. Hux preferred his surname, a constant reminder to the others of his father’s status. Many of the other ex-Imperial children had done the same. Cardinal had always called him ‘Armitage’ until Hux had grown old enough to punish him reliably for it. In return, young Hux had refused to use Cardinal’s given name, Archex, because CD-0922 did not deserve a name.

When Cardinal replied, his voice was low, gravely, and well-used, affected by a thick Outer Rim accent that he'd worked so hard to shed before.  “I’m Archex. Do I know you?”

Hux smiled. He would have been pleased with that answer in another time and place. Cardinal had made his life miserable, and part of Hux reveled in the current anonymity. Still. Hux needed him.

“No. But I know you. You’re a hard worker, and loyal. I want to offer you a job with me in the New Republic.”

Cardinal snorted, but his dark eyes stayed on Hux. “What, so you can herd me onto your transport and haul me off to the Hutts? No, not interested.” His gaze flicked to Ren, then back to Hux. He didn’t show it ( _good, so good_ ), but it was clear Cardinal was aware that he couldn’t actually stop the two of them from doing what they liked with him.

“Nothing like that. My… _husband_  and I have significant business interests galaxy-wide. I’m currently recruiting individuals I can train for key positions. I want to train you in our particular schools of combat, and have you aid in training and recruiting a defense force.”

When Cardinal said nothing, Hux gestured. “Would you like a meal, as a show of good will?”

“I’m not getting on your ship,” Cardinal shook his head. “'Significant business interests galaxy-wide' my ass. You have all that, and you come to Jakku to recruit? You found _me_ , and I can help you?”

Hux knew how it sounded, and Cardinal had never been stupid. Even as a child, the recruitment had been difficult.

He hadn’t been recruited as a child this time. The battle of Jakku had still taken place, but the Imperial remnant had sustained heavier losses this time. Gallius Rax had been killed, and Rae Sloane had been captured. Brendol hadn’t been found, and the abductions that Hux recalled hadn't been reported locally, implying that his father had been busy elsewhere. Brendol and Rax had been the ones recruiting the children on Jakku.

“Jakku is exactly the kind of place we’re trying to help. Our business interests are along the lines of… spreading the Republican interests further than the Senate cares to. We offer defense to planets that war with themselves and those around them. We offer resources to planets like Jakku, tech and opportunity.” This was a First Order speech. Cardinal was particularly weak to them. Hux took a step forward. “You seem like a man who needs a cause, and I know you are capable. Come with us.”

Archex wasn’t convinced. “How do you know me? How do you know me _specifically_?”

This was the tricky part. Hux _hummed_ , and glanced at Ren for a moment. “Do you know of the Force?” Hux didn’t quite believe it when Archex shook his head. “The power that Jedi wield?” Still no recognition. “You’ve never heard of Jedi?”

“No.” He seemed annoyed by Hux’s disbelief. “What does that have to do with me?”

“It’s magic. It can accomplish superhuman feats.  Users can lift and move objects with their will, and live in the minds of others.” He turned, gestured. “Ren? A demonstration?”

Ren hated doing things like this on command. So Hux was not surprised when his goggles were pulled back and snapped against his face, or when his cloak was yanked forcefully off and dropped to the ground around him. He pretended it didn’t affect him, though he had to rub his stinging eyes and re-seat his goggles.

“It’s not like he says," Ren began. "The Force is-”

“Magic,” Hux interrupted, knowing it wasn’t the time for doctrine. “I saw you with it. I knew you were the person we needed. I _saw_  you.”

Archex said nothing, merely studied the cloak on the ground, then Ren, obviously not convinced of the “magic” of the Force. But there were things that Hux knew Cardinal believed in. It was why Cardinal was so loyal, and did as he did. He said them now.

“We would provide a better life for you. Food, housing, a purpose. You would be helping others achieve the same standards. You would leave Jakku, and you would help us. That is my offer.” He looked out across the desert, lit dimly in the last of the sunset. The light caught in the fine particles of sand in the air, turning into a green and purple haze around them. The phenomenon was unique to Jakku, and quite beautiful, but did not make Hux hate the planet any less.

“Take it or leave it. You can stay on Jakku, for all I care.”

That did it. Archex’s face lit, and his mouth opened. He stepped forward, seeming to want to stop Hux from leaving.

“You have a condition,” Hux said flatly. There was always something. “Name it.”

“My wife. She comes too.”

“You have a wife,” Hux repeated. As far as he knew, which was everything, Cardinal had never once had sex with another person. Not for lack of attention, but for lack of interest. Hux had not expected him to have a partner. But it didn’t matter. “She can come too. I’ll give her a job. We’ll go get her now.”

“She’s… sick,” Cardinal said, holding Hux’s gaze. “She needs help.”

“We’ll help her the best we can.” It was an easy thing, and Hux had access to all the medical tech. “Follow me. Tell me where your home is, and we’ll pick up your wife and leave. What is her name?”

“Sandy.”

“Of course it is.” Hux lowered the ramp to the transport and gestured Archex aboard. As Hux watched, he took the ramp slowly, leaving his junk abandoned in the middle of Niima outpost. After a moment, Hux started up the ramp after, his boots ringing against the metal boarding ramp, Ren following loudly behind him.

_Why him? He’s not bothered by it, but I am. It could be anyone else._

_It has to be him. I had a vision, Ren, and all these people are in it._

_He’s… just a grunt._

_He’s the best grunt. You’ll see. I know what he’s capable of. If you want me to do my work, I need him. I need the others. And I’ll be myself after that._

_Yourself._

“Yes,” Hux answered aloud. “Myself. No more sitting in the suite all day. I’ll learn the businesses, I’ll speak to our contacts. I won’t need any more time off.”

Ren wasn’t convinced, and was still very unhappy. Hux sighed, pausing in the main hold and crossing his arms, glancing over at Cardinal, who was standing in the middle of the spacious room and gawking at the bulkheads.

“Two days less on the trip now. We’d budgeted three days for Jakku,” he mentioned to Ren, still vaguely shocked by Cardinal's skinny frame and aged skin.

“This isn’t the vacation you promised.”

“It will be. It’ll be easier after this.”

It would be. Hux would make it so. He would repeat it as many times as necessary.

Ren said nothing, moving up to the cockpit to drive the transport. Hux told Cardinal to go help Ren find Sandy. Then, with the ship’s engines powering up and whining around him, he went to his and Ren’s berth and sat on the edge of the bed by himself.

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
They found them all. Unamo, Mitaka, Tenla, Kenna. Mitaka and Gow were from Imperial enclaves that the exile ships had found later. The enclaves were still there, untouched. The ex-Imperials had given up their lifestyles to become farmers, ranchers, and fabricators. All the planets he went to knew nothing of the First Order, no matter how Hux searched for it. There was no trace of them.

Convincing all his people to come with him was easy, since he knew exactly what to say to them. Earning their continued loyalty would be easy. He would learn the business alongside them. They all had their place.

He trained them on-board the transport, outlined the new job duties for each. Cardinal and Kenna’s more physical training would wait until they were on Bystran, which was apparently the planet Hux used as the base of his military operations. Mitaka was a scheduler, and Hux learned all the various duties of his own life alongside him and Ren. Unamo was a coordinator. She began the long, exhaustive process of learning each part of Hux’s businesses, and what was considered noteworthy for each.

Hux left Bariss to the end. She had been an elected Mayor in the small settlement of Orus Foda on Pessan, but had clearly hated it. She’d taken almost no convincing to leave her loyal constituents. Once Bariss had been collected, they’d gone straight back to Hosnian Prime. The others were transported to their new and generous lodging, but Bariss came with Hux and Ren, taking the direct lift into Hux’s office.

“You’re me,” he explained simply, addressing the office. “You’ll live in this building. You’ll oversee the others. If I can’t arrange a meeting, you’ll go in my place, with my best interests in mind. You can coordinate the others. You can make decisions, but you’ll need to confer with Ren and myself for the foreseeable future. You’ll be in direct communication with the New Republic Senators and their staff. That’s what I’m most interested in. Do you understand?”

“Yes!” Bariss was… different, moreso than the others. Her conditioning had been her entire personality. This version of Bariss was positive and outgoing. Her expression open, she wore her ambitions on her sleeve. Sleeves which her Pessan clothing did not have - she wore a complicated deep green wrap that started around her neck and continued down her torso, ending in wide swathes of loose fabrics that covered her legs to the floor. The outfit was accented with silver ornament. The fabric was rich, and a deeper color than what the other humans on Pessan had worn, perhaps a status symbol.

Her settlement was well-managed, but small. She wanted more. She wanted this.

“When can I start? Immediately?”

“Of course.” Hux glanced over at Ren, then handed her a datapad. “Start by comming Jara R- Lat,” he said, his gaze sliding over to Ren again, then back to Bariss. “Go over finances with her, see where the money comes from. Then study the Senate briefings for the last six months.”

“I know them,” she waved the instruction away. “Do you have a philosophy for the legislation?”

“Favorable to me,” Hux said, annoyed by her… not-Bariss-ness. “Favorable to the planets we are trying to aid. Study it, study the businesses. Ask me questions. We will learn the answers together.”

“Yes, sir!” Her eyes sparkled, and she put out her hand. Hux stared at it a moment, then took it. She was heavier than she had been, and she kept her hair long, braided and swept up atop her head. She wore heavy Republic-style makeup around her eyes in light colors, standing out in contrast against her dark skin. “A pleasure to be working for you. I still can’t believe you found me, if you don’t mind me saying so. It’s an incredible opportunity.”

“Of course. Dismissed, Colo- Mm. Bariss.”

“Call me Korr.”

“No. I will not.”

Her face fell for a moment, but she recovered quickly. “Of course. Not professional.” She inclined her head. “Mr. Hux. Mr. Ren.”

Hux almost corrected her before she disappeared back into the lift, going to the generous suite that Hux had arranged for her. She would do well.

She wasn’t Bariss. None of them were themselves, really. Not the leaner, more suspicious Cardinal, nor the jaded, bitter Mitaka who was simply relieved to be removed from his family’s textile plant. Mitaka had a partner and three children. Unamo had a child. Many of them had families.

“You don’t know any of them,” Ren accused after the doors had shut behind Bariss. Hux closed his eyes, turned to face him.

“I know them well enough. I convinced them to come with us, didn't I? I need them. I’ll use them to interface with our businesses, they’ll help me-”

“We already had all those people in place.”

“They weren’t _my_  people-”

“No," Ren interrupted, his voice low, his expression intense. "They are your people. You want to be unhappy.”

That hit Hux like a slap in the face. When Hux said nothing, Ren continued.

“You’re… focused on how things aren’t right between us. You’re obsessed with it. And you’re doing it all yourself, because you keep comparing me to… some miserable, moody version of me you dreamed up-”

“You were never- you were never miserable,” Hux protested weakly, his face growing warm, the lie obvious between them. Or perhaps not, since Ren didn't believe in the other version of himself.

Ren’s expression turned sadder, and he took a step closer. “I’m right here, and you keep coming up with every… all these reasons why I’m not. Why things aren’t right, why you can’t settle in, why you have to have everything a certain way. I know you aren’t well. But you have to stop doing…” he waved at the door behind Hux, where Bariss had vanished. “This. You have to just accept the way things are. We both do.”

Hux was stunned. He took a step back. He had nothing to say, no retort to any of it. He wanted to fight, to tell Ren he was wrong. But-

“You always want to fight. But this time, you’re… delusional. Neither of those people you’re imagining are us, Hux. And you’re ignoring everything else. You have to stop.” Ren’s tone had sharpened along with his temper, but he closed his eyes for a moment and dispelled his anger. “You keep thinking about how we aren’t right together, and using excuses why we can’t be. That it’s you.”

He paused again, and he dropped his eyes. Raised them. Pinned him with those sad brown eyes, the sadness that always reminded him of Ben Solo. He hated to see it, he always hated to see it, but he especially hated it on this Ren, and he hated knowing he’d caused it very directly. “You… I could sense you, looking for your father. You thought we’d hear about him on one of those planets. That the two of us would find him and kill him at the end of the trip.”

“The First Order,” Hux said faintly. “I thought there would be rumors of it. I could stop… my father.”

Ren’s expression hardened, sensing what Hux was trying to imply, knowing it was a lie. “You didn’t want to stop the Imperial remnant.”

“No.” Hux swallowed, and answered more honestly. “I wanted to take it. But I wanted to kill my father.”

“We did.”

There was a ringing in Hux’s head suddenly, different from the discordant buzz that he’d come to be familiar with, that absence of Ren. Different, and just as overwhelming, because that was just as awful as waking up to a life without Ren. That. The First Order, they’d-

“We… did what, Ren?” The question was faint. Because he knew. He knew himself. He’d always hated his father. And he wouldn’t have stood for it, the not knowing for thirty years.

“Years ago,” Ren took another step forward, his posture tense, his voice rising. “Almost as soon as you could, after you got the right ships and weapons. You followed the ex-Imperial rumors into Wild Space. You found their ship. We boarded it. You executed your father yourself. There was a High Command aboard. They were starving themselves, desperate. You took all of them in, turned them in for war crimes, scrapped the ship. It’s done, Hux. It’s been done for years. Did me telling you that change anything?”

He tried to imagine a situation where he’d killed his father with his own hand, with a blaster, Ren by his side. It was easy to picture. The two of them, together in this life, were unstoppable. Happy.

But it brought him no joy. He hadn’t done it himself. He stared at Ren, hating that Ren was doing this to him.

“I arrested the First Order High Command, and turned them over to the New Republic for _war crimes_ ,” he said instead, flat and incredulous.

Ren clenched his jaw, pushed back his anger again. “No. It doesn’t change anything. You still don’t believe it was you that did it. You did. You’re _you_. You’ll always be you. And I’m me.” Ren stepped closer, obviously frustrated. Hux picked up the edge of his thoughts, that Hux should know, that Hux would be able to explain this better. Ren never had the words.

Instead of trying to explain further, he leaned in, gripped Hux’s shoulders, kissed him angrily.

It should have been good. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t kissed each other after fights before. It was always good before.

The recruitment had taken twenty days, ten days less than Hux had anticipated. He’d learned a lot about his life when teaching the others. He told himself he was more prepared now. He'd fantasized about getting back to this suite, feeling like himself, feeling in control.

On board the ship, he and Ren had done little but share a bed, and that not often, as Hux had slept little. They’d barely touched. And he told himself once the trip was finished, he’d feel comfortable around Ren again. Himself.

Ren said he was himself.

But the kiss was… wrong. He didn’t feel the pull of emotion through his thoughts. He felt almost nothing but the sick sensations of being trapped and exposed.

An impostor.

Ren pulled back, looking troubled. His hands were on Hux’s shoulders, his thumbs massaging.

“You aren’t an impostor. You’re mine.” His anger dissolved, just like that, and he looked stricken again. “Look, I… know you’re trying. It’s fine, we’ll just… try together. I’ll go to meetings with you. You’ll be fine. It’ll just take longer than we thought to get back to normal.”

 _Normal_ , Hux thought.

He reached into the neck of Ren's tunic, pulling gently on a chain around Ren's neck.  He was wearing ID tags, the tiny Imperial tags they gave to children who first enrolled at the academy, before they were assigned career tracks.  "ARMITAGE" was printed on them in Aurebesh, along with his number, AB-6782.  Not his last name, because that had been before his father had given him his last name.

"When did you give me the focusing crystal for your lightsaber?" Hux asked, his eyes going back to Ren's.  He'd spotted the tags on their second day together, relieved that a version of them still existed in this life. He still couldn't imagine himself parting with them. He'd seen too many sudden, anonymous deaths to bear removing them.

Ren's face fell, and he took a step back, his hands sliding off Hux's shoulders and the tags pulling out of his hands.

"Can't you remember?  Please, Hux?"

Hux looked at the tags. It was easier than looking at Ren's face. "It was at the same time you gave me your focusing crystal."

"Yeah. But. You don't remember it, do you? You guessed."

_If I go with you, I won't come back._

Hux would never forget the day Ben gave him the focusing crystal.

_Don't choose your family over me, Ben._

He looked into Ren's face, met Ren's eyes. "No. I don't remember."

Ren dropped his gaze, swept his fingers through his hair in frustration. He was extremely hurt that Hux had forgotten the significance of the crystal. He closed his eyes again, dispelling his anger, then masking his thoughts.

When he glanced back up, it was with a neutral expression. “We’re back home. And it’s late. Come to bed.” One corner of Ren’s mouth quirked. “You still like that. And I’m glad.”

When Hux didn’t respond, his mind instead playing the memory of the awkward kiss over and over, Ren’s expression fell again.

“Okay. take your time.” Ren leaned forward, kissed his cheek, then turned and went into their bedroom. Hux watched him, mouth dry. He did like sleeping with Ren. More than anything, more than all the rest of it, he’d missed sharing a bed with Ren.

Their disagreements had often ended with harsh kisses and the two of them in bed together. The two of them shouted at each other, Hux hating that Ren could so effectively make him lose his temper every time. Ren would grab him, shake him, physically intimidate him. And then they would kiss, and fuck, and forget about whatever was bothering them.

He thought about the careful distance Ren kept here. They'd kissed, but prior to that, Ren had kept his temper. Stood several paces away and made reasoned arguments. He thought about their transport rides, about sleeping together, about the fights and arguments they'd had in Hux's office.  Always, Ren stayed back from him, Ren barely touched him in bed, and Ren kept his temper.

Hux hated himself for preferring the angry Ren, the one that shouted at him, grabbed and shook him, pinned him, kissed him with teeth and used his weight to pin Hux to the bed. The one that used touch to annoy Hux and get his attention. Why was he like this?

Why couldn't he accept this more moderate Ren, with his reasoned arguments?

And Ren was right, about all of it.

He walked out to the balcony, feeling lost. He took in the obnoxiously bright night view of Republic City, the lines of speeder traffic neon blurs through the semi-dark sky.

All of it was his. He was the point on which the Republic turned, and nothing happened without his say-so. He and Ren had their rich rooms, their money, their power. An entire personal army, planets that belonged to them. Senators. The things that Hux had worked hard for all his life.

All of it was here, along with Ren, who he’d finally found. Who loved him. Who wanted them to be happy together, and knew him so intimately, better than he knew himself.

He leaned against the rail, felt the charge of the built-in barrier field close to his skin. He squinted to see the bright technicolor lights of the city center, and sneered.

His hate for decadence was not something he could give up, though his old loathing for the New Republic had slowly died as he’d been forced to come back here and be confronted with all the lives he’d taken.

He sighed, and leaned out further. His tight pants pulled at his thighs, and the barrier field rattled in his teeth as he pushed against the edge of it. Gritty wind blew in his face.

He was focused on himself and Ren, on the feeling of Ren in his thoughts, sleeping in the next room, unhappy and disturbed. He was obsessed with how he didn’t measure up to the version of himself he’d built in this world.

And perhaps he was being punished by Ventu, somehow. Punished for how he’d treated Ren, because it had taken him away first, more and more of him each time.

But it had also taken away the Order each time, bit by bit, until it hadn’t existed any more. If he was being punished for the way he’d treated Ren, if he’d learned to regret it, was he also being punished for the First Order? For the things he’d done, the lives he’d taken? For making the Starkiller?

That mattered, and he would never forget it. It would haunt him for the rest of his life, even though the atrocity had been miraculously erased. He’d be forced to think of it every day here.

But the rest of it?

Who was he, without the First Order?

He wasn’t this. But he would have to get used to it.

Hux stayed out on the balcony until the artificial light dimmed and the Hosnian sun rose over the horizon. He didn’t sleep, didn’t dare go into the bedroom with Ren.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
The next day, he took a small transport and a protocol droid. He had told Ren he needed a day to himself. Ren frowned, not liking that Hux was already abandoning work. But he’d nodded. Told Hux that he could have one more day. Hadn’t been happy about it.

So Hux had taken the droid and gone to Ventu. But not to change anything this time, just to talk. He needed to know what had happened to him. He landed near the settlement of Ak’dar, remembered the coordinates exactly. There were only three settlements on the continent, and the Varra weren’t used to space travelers. He took his protocol droid and marched into the one he knew best. 

It was daylight. It hadn’t been the last three times he’d come here. The pollen hung in the air like a purple haze, sunbeams cutting through the branches of the thick forest canopy in solid-looking beams. The thick, sweet floral smell permeated everything. This time, there were orange-red flowers crawling all over the forest. Honeysuckle, Hux remembered Ren saying, when the bath had smelled like it in the Senatorial suite. He made a note to look it up in the ship systems later. Maybe knowing more about the planet would help.

In the light of day, it was difficult not to miss Ren at his side, the complement of Stormtroopers that had followed him the first time he’d come with a protocol droid. Now, only two of the red-skinned humanoid Varra saw him enter the village.

The priest emerged quickly from the largest of the huts, as if anticipating Hux's arrival. The priest was still naked, still wearing that garment that wrapped around the waist and left the nude front of the alien exposed. Hux didn’t even bother with a greeting, but only gestured imperiously to the clearing they’d used before, the one with the logs he’d had to climb to sit on. He was annoyed when the protocol droid initiated the proper greeting anyway, delaying the priest near the huts and speaking in their barking language.

He climbed the log without protest this time. The priest eventually followed him, slowly climbing into position next to him.

Now that he had the opportunity to have all his questions answered, he found that he didn’t care to speak. He stared off into the distance, through the trees and the oddly solid beams of pollen. He knocked his feet impatiently against the log, still not happy that his boots been stained with the shockingly red dust of the soil here. The priest left him to his silence.

Hux wanted to pretend he didn’t know how to address this thing that had happened to him, that had stolen his identity and his home and his partner.

But he did. He knew exactly what he wanted to ask. And he knew the priest would answer, because the priest had explained everything once before, when Hux had failed to listen. 

“I’ve come here. I’ve gone to your cave. Your… religion. It’s taken hold of me.” He turned, looking at the priest. “I have… my partner. My _husband_. Kylo Ren. He’s a master of the Jedi Force, and I’ve asked him if the universe’s life Force has affected me. He says no. He says that I’m sick, and that I have the wrong memories. I’m not sick. I know what’s happened to me.”

The priest said nothing. It stared at Hux with tiny eyes set into a small flat face. It twitched one of its ears. Hux tried again, this time with a question.

“Have you heard of such a thing? Your… faith, your beliefs. Does something here take your people on paths? Through different versions of their lives?”

“Yes. There are many paths. All paths are The Way.”

“So. You know about this? That I keep living different versions of my life, over and over again? Literally. It’s not… some vision. I wake up rich. I wake up without my father, or with him. I wake up without an arm. All of this is happening to me.”

The priest nodded. “Those are all your Way. They are all possibilities. All are your life.”

“Okay.” That wasn’t helpful. He thinned his lips, forced himself to be patient. He clasped his hands in his lap. “This all happened after I went into your cave. With my partner, who was a believer. I didn’t. Believe, that is, I don’t believe in any of it, even in his powers. Really. Just… him.” He closed his eyes. He didn’t need to babble all this to the priest, it wasn’t necessary. “But I lied about him in the cave, to his face. After that, it was… different. That’s when it started. I woke up in bed with no memory of what happened after I entered the cave, and it wasn’t my life. I came here every time, and it would all start over.”

“The Many Ways. Did you learn what you needed to?”

“It was a punishment?”

The priest made a noise that the protocol droid translated as sadness. “Not all lessons are punishment.”

Hux looked away from him, back out into the purple haziness of the forest. He dug his fingers into the rough bark of the log below him. “Lessons are a punishment for not knowing.”

“Ignorance is not a crime.”

Hux believed it was. But if the priest insisted this was not a punishment, he would leave it. “I learned. I learned about… us, Ren and I. And what’s important. That we work together, that we have overlapping lives. What our goals are. How to get there.”

“Good. Then the Way was correct. You learned. Did you find your Best Way?”

Hux turned, looked at the priest again. There was no way to read its expression.

“I suppose I did,” he forced out. He’d found a happy life that belonged to him, master of the galaxy in a system he had reduced to ashes, head of a government he’d spent his life obliterating. Doing the same things he’d always done, but better at them now. Master of himself, and his own life. Ren was with him, Ren was doing all the same things at his side.

“It’s the best version.”

“Then The Way has been useful to you.”

“Useful,” Hux repeated, looking back out into the forest. “Yes. Maybe. I don’t-” He stopped. Sat in silence for several minutes. The priest, frustratingly patient, did not interrupt. A pair of Varra darted out of the forest. One spotted him, and stopped to stare. Hux looked away, back up into the canopy, in the vague direction of a bird call. He coughed. He could feel the pollen coating his eyelashes, his throat.

He looked back to the priest. He wished he’d brought Ren with him, to ask what he wanted to know. Ren would be able to ask in a way the priest understood. Ren could translate these broad strokes of their philosophy and tell Hux whether he had lived through a punishment, whether the punishment was for his treatment of Ren or the murder of billions or for just being himself. Whether he was still being punished.

The silence between the priest and himself was much less awkward than those he and Ren shared these days.

“How many ways are there? Even if… the one I’m on is perfect, ideal. Is there more still open to me?”

The priest hummed. “There are many ways. Some individuals explore multiple paths. They are our acolytes. There are few now, the ways are not often studied. But the Ways take time. And the Ways of this planet are much the same.” The priest studied him. “The ways of others, who live away, whose lives take many paths through many worlds, may be different. How many ways have you seen?”

“There are… Four. I’ve woken up in a different life four times. So, five total.”

“Five.” The priest made another emotive noise. “I have heard of only three. And those all here, in the forest, in Ak'dar. Much is the same. We are slowly dying. The three ways are very ancient.”

“I see.” He didn’t, not really. Just that the Varra couldn’t help him. If they woke up in a different life, they’d still be in the same forest, in the same bed, doing the same things.

There was another long silence. Hux watched a patch of sunlight move the length of a twig on the forest floor. His stomach growled. The priest sat, silent. Patient.

“You have been most helpful,” Hux offered, though he wasn’t sure it if it was true. He thought politeness was called for, respect for an acolyte of this religion that had so thoroughly ensnared him.

He needed Ren. He needed to bring Ren back here and explain-

 _You need to stop_ , he heard Ren telling him. _You need to be satisfied, you need to accept what’s in front of you_.

Well. If Hux lying had started all this, perhaps he needed to accept the truth. The priest’s words hadn’t been that helpful to him.

He slid off the log, and had the protocol droid make his polite goodbyes. He told the priest that he wanted to explore, which was another half-truth. None of the Varra stopped him.

He left the protocol droid in Ak’dar. He thought about bringing it, but three of the Varra had emerged from the small buildings to inspect it, studying their reflections in its purple-smeared chrome sides and asking it questions in the barking language. The droid and villagers both seemed delighted by each other. Hux was glad something good had come of the visit.

He went to the cave alone. He told himself he just wanted to look, to explore. To see in the light of day this thing that had made him so miserable.

 _You aren’t an impostor. You’re mine_.

He would always be Ren’s, no matter what.

He went in. The honeysuckle smell grew overpowering. The slick walls and stairs didn’t disgust him as much, but he studied them harder this time. Longer. The torches burned. He wondered if the priest lit them every day. If the priest or acolytes came here daily for the torches and had only woken up in different lives three times, certainly Hux could go to the bottom once. Just to see it.

“My life is perfect,” he said aloud as he descended the stone stairs, cursing himself. “Ren loves me. We grew up together and share everything. Built an entire galaxy-wide society, all its influence and science and technology and defenses. We did all of it together. We do it all from a system that I annihilated, that I gave an order to render to dust. Billions of lives move around me, and I still decide whether they live or die. I save billions more by what I do.”

He said the words out loud. He knew that they had power here, that this was the only place where everything about him, all the bad memories and terrible behavior and atrocities, all of it was seen, and all of it was true. He knew what to say, what he wanted himself to believe.

“It’s all fine. It’s what I wanted. I have Ren. The Republic is mine. I earned it.”

He continued down the stairs.

“I’m happy. We’re happy. Our lives are still bound, and we’ve made the most of it.”

The stairs kept going. The air got cooler, and somehow thicker.

“Ren says we’re happy. We look happy in all the documentation I have of my life. I had a mother that loved me. Mon Mothma. I eat dinner with Leia Organa and her brother and Ren’s father, because they are my family.”

He stopped. He looked down into the darkness, the stairs going on and on. He said the words, and made them true.

“I’m happy. This is my best life. My best _way_. It’s perfect.”

He stared. Listened to the sound of his voice echo up and down the narrow tunnel.

“I don’t deserve any of it. I killed all those people. I destroyed that Senate. I scraped and cheated to get the money to build my own fleet, with sweat and blood and tears. I’m not a good person, and the First Order made me that way.”

He took another breath. “Ren isn’t a good person either. Our lives are bound, and we are the same. Give this Ren back the right Armitage Hux. Give him back the Armitage Hux he deserves. Give me the Ren that deserves me, the person I am. Give us back our Order, the mistakes I’ve made, the lives I took. Let me live with it, and not pretend it didn’t happen, that it wasn’t a decision I’d made and told myself was for the greater good.”

He closed his eyes, and went further down the stairwell, into the humidity of the chamber below.

“Give me back my Ren, and my Order.”


	22. Part Five: Chaitivel - Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hux does find what he's looking for at the end of the fic, but he has to... suffer through a little more rain to get to his rainbow, if you will. The next few chapters seem bleak, but they lead to good things.
> 
>  
> 
> ~~Sorry I killed the romance. ): ~ Kylo~~
> 
>  
> 
> There's also a brief section where Hux wonders if a past version of himself had lost the will to live. Nothing specific, but if you need to avoid that, skip the paragraph after Hux mentions that Snoke would execute him if he appeared in person after Starkiller.

When Hux woke this time, it was not in an unfamiliar bed, scrambling to figure out where he was, when he was, who he was.

This time, he jolted awake while standing in the easily-recognizable Blue S6 transport aboard the _Supremacy_. He was in his own uniform. He was a general. This was the Supreme Leader’s ship. He was exhausted, bone-weary, felt fatigue drawing his eyelids closed, felt stims singing through his blood and an ache in his muscles. He was sleeping on his feet, and his thoughts were foggy. He likely hadn’t slept in over thirty hours. They were all sensations he was well familiar with from the days of Starkiller.

He blinked, looked around the small transport to ensure that he was alone, then rubbed his face to clear his blurry vision. Stars, he was tired. What was he doing on the _Supremacy_  without sleep?

More importantly, he patted his hip, then withdrew his blaster. It was exactly as he expected. Coded to his palm print, and the best model of small sidearm the Order had developed. He holstered it, readjusting his greatcoat, staring at the sleeves in fascination, taking in his rank. _General_. It had been so long. Even his gloves felt good. He made a fist with his left hand, feeling the pull of the tight, well-fitted leather. He put a hand to his head - no cap, but his hair was in its usual style.

Everything was as it should be. He glanced around the empty transport again, feeling giddiness wash over him. It was possible what he was seeing was somehow untrue. So many things could be wrong. But it felt like - _was_  - years since he’d last been on the _Supremacy_. Certainly the Supreme Leader’s citadel, his symbol of mobile power, wouldn’t exist without the power he, and the Order, had gained from Kylo Ren?

He retrieved his datapad from his greatcoat pocket, his hands shaking slightly, from stims or fatigue or excitement, it didn't matter.  He was on the _Supremacy_ , and he was wearing his own greatcoat, and why his hands were shaking was low on his list of priorities. He was exceptionally tired. Even his elation at things finally going right couldn’t fight through the sluggishness in his thoughts.

But he certainly had enough wits about him to do basic file checks for his main staff. Bariss. Mitaka. Unamo. Peavey. Opan. All accounted for, all had their correct rank and station.

 _Ren. Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren. Recruited 22 ABY. Co-Commander of the_  Finalizer.

Here. Ren was here. The dates were correct, his appointment was correct. Hux closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall of the transport. His knees had begun to shake, and his hands were shaking so badly that he nearly dropped the datapad. He needed to sit down.

Instead, he calmed himself and concentrated, searching his thoughts. He felt Ren’s presence. Barely there, as if at a distance, but there. It was thrilling.

This was… it. It was what he had asked for. He thought of Ren. _His_ Ren, who was angry, unhappy, and constantly seeking the next goal, as if stopping to consider what he was doing wasn’t an option. Hux did that for him, of course. He would never take it for granted again.

He thought of the Ren he’d seen last. Still mean-spirited and short-tempered, but slightly less aggressive. Happy. He ran the galaxy with Hux, and he did it better than Hux could have. They were the richest men in the Republic. They were Emperors.

He opened his eyes. That Ren deserved his own Hux, the one he’d grown up with and knew best. The Hux that could do his share without feeling lost and out of place. He wanted his Ren back. He wanted to fix things between them, and he knew how to do it. He _would_  do it.

He could find Ren and take him to bed now, in fact. Not for sex, but simply to sleep. That would be a good first step. If he’d been depriving himself of sleep, he and Ren likely hadn’t been sharing a bed, and Hux slept better with Ren. Ren’s presence in his mind indicated he wasn’t nearby, but perhaps he could be commed. Ren would be pleased if Hux asked for him. He checked the date and time, wondering how much time had passed, _when_  he was.

It was the day Starkiller had been destroyed. Of course. No wonder he hadn’t slept. But he hadn’t gone to the _Supremacy_  that day. The Supreme Leader had asked for Ren directly, but Hux hadn’t taken him that same day. He’d feigned Ren’s injuries were worse than-

Well. Hux didn’t want to think about that right now. It hadn’t been a _good_  day. But he was here instead, and not on board the _Finalizer_. So, something had changed. Well. He could deal with something small, if the rest was as he remembered.

Hux allowed himself the luxury of sitting on one of the transport’s benches, resting his aching feet, leaning his sore back against the bright blue durasteel wall. He programmed an override that would make the transport express, and keep it private for the duration. Another ten minutes. The _Supremacy_  was a large ship.

He checked his schedule to learn where in the giant ship he was going. He felt confident he could step seamlessly into any meeting he was attending. Or, as seamless as could be managed the same day Starkiller was destroyed. But he wanted a little forewarning, and he’d have to manage some small level of upset. He’d been… not himself that day, though he knew now that the end of Starkiller was only the beginning of their move into New Republic territory.

Well. His orders indicated that he was responding to an urgent summons from the Supreme Leader.

Right. That was different.

Ren likely wouldn't be there, Hux would be able to sense his thoughts if he was close enough to attend. Perhaps he was still recovering on the _Finalizer_ , after... well, his injuries, and the _incident_ , and the tranquilizers Hux had finally given him.

But the _Finalizer_  should be docked in the _Supremacy_  if Hux was here, and he should have had a stronger sense of Ren.  Where was he?  He wouldn't be elsewhere, not if Starkiller had been destroyed. And it had, judging by the numerous emergency alerts on his datapad, which he was currently dismissing without reading them, nearly as fast as they appeared.

Would Hux meet with the Supreme Leader alone, right after the destruction of Starkiller? A chill dropped down his spine and sat in his stomach, twisting.

The reason Hux hadn’t gone to the _Supremacy_  after the Starkiller evacuation was that he hadn’t wanted to face the Supreme Leader after that failure. He wasn’t… he hadn’t been in a good place that day. Out of control, and not himself. He hadn’t felt confident he could give the answers that the Supreme Leader would inevitably ask of him.

He had also been certain that the Supreme Leader would kill him, were he to appear in person. And even though he now knew what came after Starkiller, and that the failure wasn’t as monumental and irrevocable as it had initially seemed, the Supreme Leader did not know that. His life was still at risk. 

Perhaps he’d had a death wish. He’d certainly given up just before he’d actually evacuated the collapsing base. It was possible he was seeking the Supreme Leader out because he believed he deserved whatever punishment he would receive.

He still deserved punishment, but his sense of self-preservation was functioning again. He’d had time to consider Starkiller, both what they had done with it and what they would have done with it, had the shields not failed. It had killed billions, of course. Billions more, after the Supreme Leader had ordered them to fire on the whole system, rather than just the capitol planet. Had it survived its first firing, the Supreme Leader would have had them fire it again and again. They would have eaten dozens of stars, and eradicated hundreds of billions of beings. For nothing. They had achieved what they sought with just that single firing. It was better that they’d been stopped that first time. It hadn’t affected anything.

He’d spent so much time in Republic City, even after he’d destroyed it. He never would again, now. All that speeder traffic, those lights and holo-ads that burned all night, the push and bustle of crowds. That med center attendant that had tried to track Ren down for him, that first time. The med center and its attendant were gone, because Hux had given that order. Every single being that had been in that lobby. Their lives, their children. Their jobs.

Those other versions of himself and Ren would be gone too, had they existed here.  The sick Ren, the Senator Ren, and that Emperor Ren as well.

Hux sighed, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. It had been monstrous, and he knew it. He still didn’t know how it would be different now, or if it ever could be. And would it be different, had he reappeared in an earlier version of himself? Would he be able to stop it, if this was the day before the weapon had fired? Would he stop it if he could? Would he stop it if he’d come back a year before? Five years before? He didn’t know, and turned from the question. He didn’t need an answer now, it didn't matter. It was done.

When the weapon had been destroyed, that had been… that had been the worst. It had felt like it had erased years of his life. That it was the end of the Order, and his entire life as he’d known it.

Well. It hadn't been an end for him. It seemed silly now. He’d thrown those years away himself.

He drifted on these thoughts, the what-ifs, and found himself jolting back awake as the transport chimed to signal his arrival. He stood and snapped to attention, running a gloved hand over his hair before the door opened directly into the Supreme Leader’s chamber, catching his slightly distorted reflection in the durasteel doors.

He knew well what he looked like. He’d changed into a clean uniform, used the ‘fresher to wash the failure of Starkiller off himself. His uniform and appearance were as neat and orderly as ever. But his skin was sickly pale, his eyes red-rimmed. He looked on edge. He looked pathetic, and he hated facing the Supreme Leader alone like this. Even without being underneath the crushing weight of failure, he still looked absolutely miserable, and he wasn’t sure how to change that.

But those thoughts fled him as the doors opened, revealing the Supreme Leader’s throne room.

It was… not as he’d expected.

He paused just inside the room, squeezing his hands into fists behind his back, willing himself to wake up. This wasn’t right, because it… couldn’t be. He had to be sleeping.

The tacky red drapes that lined the domed transparisteel walls of the chamber were in scorched tatters on the floor, revealing a perfect and majestic view of an anonymous star system. It was stunning, and Hux’s attention caught on that. He’d missed the stars, the view from space, and it was easier to understand this, the excellent view he’d never seen in the familiar chamber, than the rest of it. Hux forced himself to jerk his tired, overwhelmed senses away from the patterns of stars, even as he was trying to map the nearby systems - _where_  they were did not matter right now.

As he looked around, he began to panic, his vision unhelpfully blurring through the stims and fatigue, making everything worse. He stood still and willed it clear, hoping that he was somehow mistaken. But even after several moments, the room remained the same, and got increasingly worse the more of it he took in. He realized that some of the singed red heaps of fabric were _Praetorian Guards_. They were invincible, and were warded against even Ren. Hux took a few tentative steps closer to one whose armor bore a singed hole straight through the center of the faceplate.

This shouldn't be. They were strong. Their armor was specially made and Force-resistant, and they were trained to defeat even Ren with their combat skills. Hux had always thought their use as bodyguards for the Supreme Leader, who had nothing to fear from _anyone_ , a ridiculous waste. 

_What had done this?_

His eyes kept skipping over the center of the room, as if avoiding what he knew was there. He forced himself to move closer. Stared. Did not understand. It was.

It was Supreme Leader Snoke of the First Order. In three pieces. Immistakable, in that gold robe. Severed at the waist, along with part of his arm. A clean, cauterized lightsaber wound. His dim, lifeless eyes stared up at the ceiling, his expression frozen in shock. Hux sympathized.

There was a noise at the side of the room, and Hux put a hand to his blaster, spinning around, his heart in his throat. His blaster would do him no good against whoever, or whatever, had done this. Or if a Praetorian Guard entered from elsewhere and was hostile, if they tried to blame Hux for- for this. For killing the Supreme Leader. There were so many things wrong here, and Hux could solve none of them-

_Snoke was dead dead dead that meant Ren was free Hux was free the Order was theirs-_

The noise was Ren. Ren was blinking at him from the floor, his eyes landing first on Hux’s blaster, then tracking up to his face. Ren looked terrible, hair matted and tangled, with a black eye and the barely-healed lightsaber wound across his face.

That _wound_. Hux’s stomach tightened, and he stifled a noise of relief. Hux had _missed_  that horrible scar so much.

Hux moved rapidly to try to go to his side, but Ren was already pushing himself up.

“The girl murdered Snoke. She stole Snoke’s escape shuttle.”

Hux paused mid-motion, still several steps away from Ren.

The girl? The scavenger girl? Did Ren think Hux was _stupid_? She obviously hadn't done this. The horrible scene in the throne room was triumphant. Ren had finally done it. Of course it had been Ren, because who else would know the weaknesses, who else could get behind the Supreme Leader’s guard? And yet he denied it. Hux wanted to roll his eyes, and tried to push a mental protest at Ren - _Did the droid do it, too?_

But something was wrong. Ren was blocking him. He could still only barely feel Ren’s presence in his mind, despite being right next to him. He could feel Ren’s Force, as angry as it ever was, crawling over his skin. Ren’s scarred face, his furious expression…

Hux had missed it all. But why was he blocking him?

“We know where she’s going,” Ren snapped. “Get our forces down to that Resistance base. Let’s finish this.”

“Finish this?” Hux repeated in disbelief. Finish _what_? What was Ren on about? “The Supreme Leader is dead. The army is mine. We can-”

Before he could continue, he felt the grip of phantom fingers around his throat. Choking him. Choking him hard enough to constrict his airway and restrict his blood flow.

It hurt.  And was _cold_.  Even without the pressure, the touch of Ren's Force was cold enough to steal the breath from his lungs.

Ren had never attacked him before. Actually attacked him, with the Force. They’d gotten rough in arguments, particularly heated ones that eventually ended in sex. But Ren had done little but push him against a wall. Hux could do the same. Ren could have hurt Hux so easily. Just as he was now. A hand out, several paces away, expression wild. But why would he?

“The Supreme Leader is _dead_ ,” Ren repeated, all but spitting the sentence back at Hux. His eyes were cold and dark, the look on his face betraying nothing but cold control and determination. He thought nothing of this.

Ren’s hold was enough to stop Hux’s voice, but the shock and betrayal would have done it just as effectively. Hux couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. Ren would never do this to him. His vision was blurring again, darkening at the edges. It would take so little for him to lose consciousness. Ren would know that.

Hux had… worked so hard. Searched, searched for Ren for years. He’d managed to find Ren under the most hopeless circumstances, and had more than once been unsure about how to move forward. But finding Ren a stranger in what he thought was their own life was worse. Hux didn’t know what to do, his brain scrambling for direction and finding none. He was so rarely hopeless.

The grip tightened. Hux realized that this was no idle threat. If he did not know what Ren wanted, Ren would kill him and walk out of the room. He would leave Hux’s body on the floor next to the Supreme Leader and the Praetorian Guards, and he would tell anyone who asked that the scavenger girl had done it. No one would question him.

Ren wanted direction. He wanted to grow his power. He wanted to escape his past, escape the Supreme Leader, do better than him.

The answer was simple, then.

“Long live the Supreme Leader,” he gasped, barely able to get the words out around the invisible hold.

Ren dropped him, and Hux fell to the floor, striking at an odd angle that sent a pain through his knee. He made a noise as he pushed himself off the floor, looking up at Ren, looking for an answer.

Ren was already exiting the chamber. He was not looking back. Thought nothing of leaving Hux on the floor, obviously had no strong feelings about what he’d just done.

Hux rolled over and stared at the ceiling, thinking of nothing for several minutes. After everything he’d been through, he was home, and his goals were accomplished. But it was nearly the reverse of what he’d experienced in the last Ventu life. Ren didn’t care for him, thought nothing of choking the life out of him, killing him and leaving his body with the Supreme Leader.

But.

He closed his eyes and exhaled shakily. Everything was the same, except he’d never gone to the _Supremacy_  after Starkiller. Exhaustion and pain threatened to send him to unconsciousness, but he fought it. If that small detail was different, it was entirely possible that, somehow… Ren had come here without Hux recruiting him.

It seemed impossible that any version of Hux wouldn’t have been drawn to Ben Solo, wouldn’t have fallen in love with him at close quarters, nor that Ren could have helped the same.

 _Every version of Ren would fall in love with you?  Really_? his memory supplied.

Well.

He hadn’t been good to Ren during Starkiller. And after. Or before. Perhaps there had been… less love then.

But. It wasn’t like this. It was as if Ren didn’t care for him at all. As if Hux was his worst enemy, willing to challenge the fact he could defeat the Supreme Leader, standing by to usurp him as soon as it happened.

 _Really? You can’t imagine Ren feeling that way?_  A traitorous part of Hux’s mind supplied.

No. He and Ren simply… hadn’t come together yet, in this version of events. That was the only explanation.

His hand clamped over his chest, his muscles aching, and he felt his ID tags against his skin under his tunic and undershirt.

That would decide it, wouldn’t it? Always, before, when he’d searched for his ID tags and Ren’s focusing crystal, he’d hoped to find it.

This time, it had to not be there.

He felt the pain and bruising in his neck as he squeezed his collar, undoing the hooked clasps awkwardly with one gloved hand as he laid on his back, inhaling in little noisy breaths that hurt his throat. The collar of his tunic popped open, then he slowly unhooked the front. It felt slovenly, but what would happen if someone walked in? Would they really be analyzing the state of Hux’s uniform, when he was lying in the flaming ruins of this receiving room, the smell of cooked flesh hanging in the air and the Supreme Leader and Praetorian Guard in pieces all over the floor?

His tunic opened halfway down, he reached into the collar of his undershirt and tugged at his tags.

They clanked and chimed, and when he held them up to his face, he very clearly saw Ren’s focusing crystal hanging between his ID tags, where it always had.

He closed his eyes, let a noise escape his throat, forgot he was lying on the flaming floor of the throne room in less than perfect dress. He could have slept. Maybe he did. His mind wandered, to what this would have looked like before, if he’d come across this in his old life.

  
  
_“Ren,” he said, all but running across the wreck of the throne room, dodging fire and dead bodies. “Ren. Wake up. What happened? Where are you hurt?”_

_Ren’s eyes opened, and he put a hand to his head. “Hux. Why? How did you know to come?”_

_“I felt it. I knew something had-” Hux closed his mouth, shook his head. Took Ren’s hand and studied it. He was wearing his gloves, and seemed otherwise whole. “Were you injured?”_

_“No, it was just…” Ren trailed off, leaning his head against the floor and closing his eyes again. “Tired. It was… hard.”_

_“This was… it was too much, and right after Starkiller.” Hux’s tone was firm, but he let his concern show plainly in their shared thoughts, and his hands roamed over Ren, examining him for injuries._

_“It was time. It was more than time.” Ren’s eyes opened again, and he looked exhausted._

_Satisfied that Ren was uninjured, Hux’s hands stilled, and came to rest over Ren’s chest. He could feel his heart beating strongly, even through the gloves._

_Impulsively, he removed a glove with his teeth, then ran a fingertip over the scar across Ren’s face. Ren allowed it, his expression intent, his eyes studying Hux’s face._

_“Ren,” Hux spoke quietly, leaning in closer, closing his eyes. “Ren. You did it. You finally did it. You defeated Snoke. And his bodyguards. How, Ren?”_

_Hux’s voice shook, unable to control himself. Ren smiled, lazy satisfaction drifting through his thoughts along with fatigue. Ren was in some sort of shock, his emotions muted. Perhaps the reality of his victory hadn’t registered yet._

_“I just… did. It was time,” he repeated, closing his eyes again._

_“Ren. It’s ours now. All of it. We’ll take it together. We’re going into the Republic, Ren, into the Mid-Rim and the Core… Ren,” Hux shook him, leaning in closer, only centimeters of space separating their faces. “Ren. Do you see what you’ve done? What you’ve accomplished, at the end of all your training?”_

_Ren made a noise that Hux could feel in his palm, low in his chest. “He made me kill my dad. He said it was… tearing me apart, the light.” He cracked his eyes open. “He wanted me to kill you, too. He would have made me.”_

_“I killed my dad too, but it didn’t give me the Order.” Hux knew the act of killing Han Solo had wounded Ren deeply, that it wasn’t the same at all as what had happened to his own father. Ren's father had been too distant, had barely known him. He hadn’t been one of the ones who’d tried to control Ren, only to betray him._

_He was no less dead, and by Ren’s hand. Hux could feel the regret, even now._

_And he knew what Ren was trying to say._

_“Thank you,” he said quietly, all but whispering it, as he leaned over Ren, closing his eyes. Close enough to kiss him, but not quite. He grabbed Ren’s hand, the one with the terrible scar, the one he’d fixed himself, and squeezed it._

_“I love you, Hux. I always have.”_

_Hux, eyes closed, felt the truth of it in their shared connection. He allowed himself a small smile._

_“And what am I supposed to do with that, Ren?”_

_He could feel Ren’s amusement at the old reply. “Control the First Order? The galaxy.”_

_Hux’s grin broadened. He left his eyes closed._

_“I suppose.”_

  
A ridiculous, sentimental fantasy. And even after everything, in the deepest depths of his own imagination, he couldn’t admit to his Ren that he loved him.

He would, if Ren would let him. But this Ren showed no signs of wanting it.

When he opened his eyes, his regrets were still there. Had he done this to Ren? Was this a Ren who was less patient? The Ren that Hux deserved?

Heartbroken, he sent a directive to High Command. Supreme Leader Snoke was dead. Kylo Ren was the new Supreme Leader of the First Order, and his orders were to be followed.

  

 

* * *

 

 

  
Hux did not realize that Ren’s orders would be… poor. Ren was frantic, and he was making very bad decisions. Hux should have realized it would be a problem. After all, Ren’s decisions had been increasingly erratic leading up to the firing of Starkiller, a match to his unstable emotions. The events of the last day had only made him worse. And now, he was making bad decisions with the entire fleet, not just a unit of Stormtroopers.

They’d chased what couldn’t have been more than one hundred Resistance soldiers to the surface of a planet called Crait, scans suggesting it was an uninhabited desert with an abandoned Resistance base on it. Ren had them deploy the heavy canon and the AT-ATs, as if one hundred beaten Resistance soldiers was _worth_  it.

His uncle was there, of course, because Ren’s life was a nightmare.

Being thrown back into his own life, but living a day that had never happened… was in some ways harder, after going through the rest of it. He wanted to stop Ren and reassure him. His uncle wouldn’t touch him here, he was no threat. There was nothing one old man could do to stop them. They could leave, and Luke Skywalker would simply die soon. They’d killed enough people.

But Ren was blocking his thoughts, and they’d never been overly familiar on duty, in front of the others. Ren had rarely ever spoken in front of other officers except to give commands on missions. He’d never… conducted a full-scale operation like this, wouldn’t have been comfortable with it. Would have left it to Hux’s commanders, offering his own directives from the ground. But now, he was sidelining even Hux. Hux couldn’t reach him through their mental connection, couldn’t find out what was _wrong_ , and didn’t want to undermine him in front of the others. Another version of himself would have, but Hux could see how badly Ren needed to eliminate everyone on the surface of Crait.

Well. Everyone, but Luke Skywalker in particular. This was what Ren had wanted for so many years. Hux could have told him that killing the man would never kill what he did to you - Brendol had taught him that. But at the same time, Brendol was also dead, and Hux was thankful for that daily. So there wasn’t anything he could say against the assault against Luke Skywalker, who he’d so recently shared an awkward birthday dinner with. Ren had been distracted by his pursuit of revenge just before the Starkiller firing, of course. So it seemed logical that this more volatile and reckless version of Ren-

_One who’d been betrayed once too often. By Hux, or by the Supreme Leader?_

-would single-mindedly exterminate whoever he liked. Whoever was responsible for his anger. The Supreme Leader. Hux. The Resistance. His uncle. His father. By all accounts, his mother was also on Crait, and she would also die in the assault. Would Ren truly kill his entire family, and the Supreme Leader, in one day? Previously, Hux would have been there to comfort him. But he'd nearly killed Hux earlier, too. He could do nothing for Ren today.

And after all he'd been through, part of him would miss Leia Organa. He would never see her again.

Well.

Luke Skywalker was here, after all these years, the very same one who had pulled a lightsaber on Ben Solo in his sleep and sent him into Hux’s arms all those years ago. That he stood in front of so much of their heavy weaponry, only to be fired on, seemed too good to be true. But Ren gave the order, and Hux watched as all their equipment opened fire. It was ridiculous overkill that history would mock later, but it would bring an end to all this.

“More,” Ren shouted to the crew, clearly at the end of whatever was driving him to do this. His Force crept like ice over Hux, cold and paralyzing. It wasn’t as bad as it could be, with Ren blocking him. But in another time and place, Hux would have reprimanded him for the loss of control.

It seemed like a waste of breath here. Everyone could see Ren had lost control. Ren would know it, too. Ren wouldn't care.

“More!” Ren shouted again, his hands curling into fists at his sides. Hux tightened his greatcoat, turning away to give him the privacy of this moment.

After several minutes of every heavy ground cannon emptying into a single man, Hux finally stopped the onslaught.

“Enough. That’s enough!”

The moment was awkward. Hux was countermanding the Supreme Leader, whom most of these officers had never met in person. Kylo Ren didn’t have many occasions to personally command AT-AT crews.

But to Hux, he wasn’t the Supreme Leader, or even Kylo Ren, really. He was just Ren, more angry than usual. Hux knew it was Luke Skywalker, the death of Snoke, the loss of Starkiller. All on the same day. And if what had happened between them after Starkiller-

“Do you think you got him?”

Ren looked at him, beaten. Hux clenched his jaw. At least the one thing would be resolved. They could move on.

“Now, if we’re ready to get moving, we can finish this.” Whatever _this_  was. He wanted Ren to be satisfied, though he knew he wouldn't be. They could leave, and move on to more important things. Hux could sleep. Perhaps he would wake up in a different place without having to go to Ventu this time.

“Sir.”

Hux turned around. Ren stood. On the surface of Crait, in front of the command shuttle, Luke Skywalker stepped out of the cloud of salt smoke, brushing the shoulder of his black Jedi robe free of debris.

“Bring me down to him. And don’t advance our forces until I say.”

Hux stepped forward, alarmed, the cold of Ren’s Force twining painfully through his bones. Ren was in no shape for this, mentally or physically. He'd taken three days to fully recover after Starkiller. He didn’t want Ren seeing Luke Skywalker face-to-face, and he especially didn’t want Ren to fight him. It was suicidal. He took another step forward, knowing words wouldn’t reach him, trying to figure out how he could stop Ren, how to keep this inevitability from happening.

Hux couldn't bear to stand by and watch Luke Skywalker kill him. If it came to that, Hux would throw himself at the Jedi's mercy. Skywalker had disliked him on sight all those years ago. Perhaps for good reason.

“Supreme Leader, I don’t think-”

Ren gestured, and Hux felt himself collide with machinery. He lost consciousness.

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
They revived him, for what it was worth. It was after whatever Luke Skywalker did to Ren. He wasn't dead, which was a relief, but it sounded like he might as well be. Hux missed the whole thing, and he was sorry for it. Not that there was anything he could have done for Ren. Ren wouldn’t have allowed Hux to watch from any closer than the command shuttle, even had they been on good terms-

_Snoke controlled Ren by threatening Hux. Was that still the case here? Would Ren want to protect Hux, this Ren that thought nothing of killing him?_

But it was still difficult to believe that the fight had ended when Luke Skywalker had allegedly disappeared, not actually present to face Ren. How extraordinary, to betray him again like that.

Hux wasn’t well, once he’d been revived. The throw had his back aching, his throat and knee still pained him from his injuries in the throne room. Speaking was difficult, and he needed to mask how poorly he sounded from the others.

But the fact that Ren had injured him pained him worse than any of it.

Still, once he had been brought around, given the usual round of painkillers and stims, and briefed on the confrontation between Ren and Skywalker, he left the command shuttle and made his way through the red salt desert, walking into the remnants of the Resistance base after Ren, through the scorched hole in the front doors.

He had been told the Resistance had escaped as Skywalker fought Ren. Of course they had. The Order had chased two dozen people through a cave system with AT-ATs. You didn’t exterminate a few pests with canons, you did it with a unit of guerrilla soldiers. A handful of resourceful insurgents would inevitably escape from a force like theirs, and the army would feel defeated after.

He found Ren in the ruins of a control room, broken recently but long unused before that. Ren was kneeling with his back to the door, a pair of chance cubes in his hand. He looked so isolated and broken, far from how the former Supreme Leader presented himself. As far as Hux knew, Snoke never left the splendor of his throne room, surrounded by sycophants that protected him from his apprentice and other treason. Snoke's image was very much a part of his power.

Ren’s clothes were crusted in salt, and he crouched amid the wreckage of a day marked by total, humiliating defeat. Nothing about Ren spoke of power now. As Hux approached, Ren turned, one eye visible through the tangle of his dark hair, skin pale, the side of his face bisected by his new and still very visible scar. Hux remembered the wound in his side, and his eyes went to Ren’s waist. It wasn’t damp with blood, but Hux wondered if it had reopened, or if it pained Ren after the fight against his uncle.

“Why would you care?” Ren mumbled in response to Hux’s unspoken concern, turning back to stare at the chance cubes in his hand. Hux was startled that Ren had even noticed him. He was obviously distracted by something else. Perhaps by thoughts of his mother, or his uncle. Or his father, who he’d killed less than a full cycle before.

Truthfully, he was glad Ren hadn’t had to kill his mother today. Hux admired her, but he also believed that Ren wouldn’t be able to kill his entire family in a day, no matter what he said.

“I care,” Hux replied quietly, gesturing to dismiss the Stormtrooper guards that had traveled with him through the base. The guard had been automatically assigned when Hux acknowledged to the rest of the command shuttle that he was following the Supreme Leader into the base. He'd forgotten that a guard was protocol for any Officer ranked Colonel or above venturing planetside. He'd done it so rarely, and he'd always been with Ren before, and hadn't needed the guard.

 

“You only care because I’m the Supreme Leader.”

Hux inhaled sharply through his nose and bit back his immediate questions. When had they become enemies? When had they stopped having civil conversations? Had the Supreme Leader’s manipulations worked, and set them against each other here?

He tried to place when it might have happened in his memories, something that might have gone wrong to cause this. Was it during the development of Starkiller, those terrible last months when they’d been so distant? The years before that, while Starkiller had been in development and Hux had been increasingly distracted? Ren had kept reaching out to Hux, even as Hux turned him down more and more.

It could have happened before that. There were… so many bad memories, so many things that Hux had said and done over the years. Any one of them could have been a breaking point. Ren's current attitude could have happened one year ago, or ten years ago, if Ren had been any less tolerant and indulgent.

He blinked, regretting all of it now.

He could see Ren’s shoulders tightening, his head dropping a fraction lower, likely in response to Hux’s thoughts. He saw the muscles in his cheek work, but Ren didn’t turn to face him.

“You’re right. We didn’t need the Supreme Leader to drive us apart. You did that yourself.”

“I know.” Hux took another step into the shattered ruins of the ancient command center. “Ren, I… I’ve not been good to you.”

At that, Ren did turn to glare at him, showing him the scarred side of his face again. Hux felt the chill of his Force, the barest touches against his nerve endings. “We aren’t doing this now. Or ever. I know where your loyalties lie.”

“With you. Always. I swear it.” Hux took another step closer, eyes darting down nervously. Ren was no longer holding the chance cubes, and Hux hadn't seen him move. Had he hidden them with the Force? Why? An involuntary shudder took him, and he stifled it the best he could. Ren was very dangerous and unpredictable, and he might hurt him. But this was important, and he’d obviously hurt Ren, too. Ren was worth it, always. “I don’t- Something happened to me, Ren. I don’t remember everything. But what I remember is enough. I did not treat you well. I am sorry for it.”

Ren stared at him. Hux continued, hating how this confession sounded, hating that it had to come after the death of Snoke, after a final betrayal by Ren’s fucking uncle. He kept his expression stony. Perhaps that would make it seem less orchestrated. “I’m sorry for all of it. And this has nothing to do with… anything that happened in the last day, Starkiller, the Supreme Leader’s death, this battle. I would say the same thing to you if Snoke were still alive. I’ve been a fool, and I didn’t realize how important you were. To me.”

“Hux.” Ren stood, drawing himself up and straightening his shoulders, turning to face Hux full on and taking a step closer. Dangerous. So dangerous. The planet was cold, but Hux could feel the sweat run down his back, even as the chill of the Force dug deeper, began rattling in his bones and through his brain, in the back of his teeth. Ren’s eyes were red-rimmed and angry.

Hux didn’t have him. He could feel Ren slipping away, and it hurt worse than anything else that had happened since Ventu.

“You said something different _hours ago_. Do you think I’m stupid?”

“No. I know you’re not,” Hux replied quickly, wincing. He had hoped... that what had happened after Starkiller, what he'd said to Ren, was different now. Judging by Ren's response, he had to assume he'd said the same awful things. Well. His apology would be nearly useless so soon after that. Of course whatever had cursed him had sent him into the middle of the worst day of his life.

But he forced himself to stand his ground, to sound sincere. Not like his speeches to the Troops, or the prop holos that circulated, or even the speech he’d given the galaxy before firing the main weapon. This sincerity had to be different. It had to be just for Ren. “I’ve said you were stupid before, yes, but you know that I believe… you’re exceptional. You’re not stupid. I wouldn’t… stay with someone whom I didn’t respect.” He could see Ren’s expression soften, and he continued. “I won’t deny what I said earlier today. I remember. But I’m a different person now. Certainly you can sense my sincerity.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Ren’s expression darkened again. Ren was so tired, nearly as tired as Hux. “I’ve had enough of your sincerity.”

“I know you have.” Hux was desperate. Fear was creeping in, he could feel it, curling unfamiliar through his thoughts, and not something he could dismiss. Ren might hurt him. Worse, Ren _might not believe him._  He took a step closer.

“It’s my fault. I’m…” He closed his eyes. There was no good way to say this, but he wanted it to be honest. He opened his eyes again, met Ren’s glare. “I’m so pleased that you defeated the Supreme Leader, Ren. For you. You told me… what he does. That he was using your feelings toward me as leverage.”

Ren looked surprised for a moment. "I never told you that."

"I can't lie to you right now, you'll know," Hux added quickly, feeling himself talking faster, losing control. "You won't remember telling me, but you did. You told me that the Supreme Leader kept you... did awful things to you, and told you that he would hurt me if you left. I'm glad you killed him. I'm glad for you." 

He blinked rapidly, worried he'd said too much. He could see that it was true, but Ren masked his surprise with anger, shaking his head.

“The scavenger defeated Snoke. And I don’t have feelings for you.”

“Ren. I know the scavenger didn’t defeat Snoke.” Hux eyed the scar across his face. “I think she only defeated you because. You were unprepared for that fight, after Han Solo, and after being wounded.”

Ren narrowed his eyes. Hux could sense nothing of his thoughts. Previously, the last time they'd done this, Ren had tried to recruit the girl. She had no allegiances, and she would have been… good for Ren. Someone to train. The Knights had meant so much to Ren in those early years, their training had been a major anchor in his new life. But slowly, the Supreme Leader had stolen them, so subtly that neither of them had noticed the differences in their attitudes until it was too late. Snoke had turned nearly all the Knights of Ren into soulless _things_  who no longer reacted well to Ren’s training. They reminded Hux of his father's failed conditioning experiments, except the Supreme Leader never put them out of their misery.

But Ren was so good at training, and someone other than the Supreme Leader to discuss the Force with-

“No.” Ren’s hand came up, and then he dropped it. “She killed Snoke. It was why we had to pursue the Resistance. Snoke would have wanted revenge.”

Ren looked unsure, defensive. Hux wanted to use this extremely poor confrontation with the Resistance as a lesson. But. He could let it go, because Ren was… not at his best. Hux also recalled how he himself had not been his best the day after Starkiller. And today, he'd clearly made a series of decisions just as poor as Ren's. And they both knew what had gone wrong. He didn’t need to fight Ren now, or teach him lessons amid such failures.

Ren was also lying to him. About Snoke, and probably about the scavenger, and about his reasons for pursuing the attack against the Resistance.

He was blocking Hux, but this was new. They’d never really been able to lie to each other before. And he knew that Ren could sense that the lie had failed. But that he’d even try to lie felt like yet another horrible betrayal, and one that Hux couldn’t help but pursue.

“Why, Ren? You don’t have to. This day. We’ve… both done things that we’ve regretted. Talking to the scavenger, killing Snoke. Those were things you needed to do. Snoke’s death, why wouldn’t you celebrate it? It’s what we’ve wanted for years. Ever since he took you that first time and threw me out.”

“Don’t,” Ren said dangerously, a hand flexing again. “You don’t get to bring any of that up today.”

Hux grabbed his wrist, looked into Ren’s face. Had he thought about it for even a moment, he wouldn’t have dared touched Ren. But it seemed right, and he let himself keep talking.

“I don’t care what you do to me. Whatever it is, I’ve earned it. But you have to know that I’m sincere. And I’m glad the Supreme Leader wasn’t… he can’t use me against you anymore. I know he still was, whatever you say.”

“I don’t have-”

“Let me finish.” He stepped closer, laid his gloved hands on Ren’s shoulders. “I don’t know all of it, and I never will. But I’m… sorry for everything. If it hadn’t been for me, he never would have done those things to you. And I did things to you, too. You didn’t deserve any of it. I… woke up, feeling different. And you can sense it.” He paused for a moment, keeping his eyes on Ren’s. Ren’s expression was still frozen in cold distrust, but he wasn’t moving, and his Force hadn’t gotten any colder. Hux's eyes lingered on Ren's facial scar. He'd missed it so much, the sight of it made him giddy even now.

Hux continued. “You can sense it, you can read my thoughts. I’m telling the truth. I was different before I walked in and saw the Supreme Leader’s throne room, and you knew it even before you nearly killed me then. And my apologies… they’re too late, they look pathetic and sycophantic. I know that.”

Ren’s expression hardened into certainty. “They do. Hux.” He shrugged Hux’s hands off his shoulders, and took a step back. “I told you, I’m not stupid. We’re not doing this again. You don’t think I saw your hand on that blaster? That I could sense you glaring at me through the door of this room, just now?”

“Ren, I’m tired. I’m glaring at everything.” He bit back a further comment, that he would be sure to soften his gaze. He was so tired. Ren would likely not appreciate that now.

“No. Not good enough.” He stepped forward, pushing past Hux on his way out of the derelict command center, nearly knocking Hux off his feet. Hux let him leave. There just… wasn’t anything else to say. But he would try again.

Ren was worth it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Later, Hux read about the specifics of the nightmarish day the Order had lived through. Or not, in the case of the nearly two million casualties they’d sustained, between the loss of Starkiller, the _Supremacy_ , and two-thirds of Hux’s own fleet. The loss, post-Starkiller, was astonishing in its totality.

Hux had followed the Supreme Leader’s orders and returned with Ren directly. He’d apparently made a series of catastrophic command decisions after that, beginning with pursuing the Resistance to their base on D’quar immediately. Previously, Hux had not ordered his own decimated fleet to D'quar, but diverted a force from another quadrant. The delay had worked in their favor, the Resistance had believed themselves safe, and they'd managed to eliminate them with a simple aerial bombardment.

That had been the more correct course of action. Hux had certainly _wanted_  to take action immediately, but his judgment had been impaired, and he had not been himself. Here, he simply… had. And it had not gone well.

Now, they had achieved roughly the same victory against the New Republic as they had previously. But the fleet had been decimated, and the Resistance survived.

He’d been vaguely aware of some sort of attack, and damage done to the _Supremacy_. But he was flabbergasted when he saw the massive ship from the transport in space. Whatever the Resistance had done, it had cleaved the enormous mobile base and fabrication center in two, and had taken over half a dozen Star Destroyers with it. Hux had, apparently, lost one of their few Dreadnoughts just outside the base. How had six bombers taken it out?

He’d woken up just after whatever attack had befallen the _Supremacy_. Had he experienced that himself, he would have reflexively left the ship, and executed whoever considered him a coward for it. He’d had enough nightmares about explosive depressurization, life support systems failing, suffocating in the cold and dark hallways while slammed between two airlocks, and live oxygen catching fire and burning him alive. He didn't need to see it all firsthand again.

No. If he had known about the damage to the _Supremacy_ , he never would have gone to the Supreme Leader’s throne room. But would he have cared, in the day after Starkiller? It really had been the worst day of his life, and he'd... said and done several reckless things. It wasn't hard to believe that he was capable of all this.

He was on a transport with Ren and half a dozen Troopers and Officers, boggling over all this. He satisfied himself that those on board the _Supremacy_  were doing their best to save it, or as much of it as could be saved, then closed his eyes and leaned his head back. He didn’t want to deal with this today. He wanted to sleep.

“Reroute to the _Finalizer_ ,” Ren barked. There was confirmation and acceptance, and Hux heard the sounds of the engines cycling to re-route the transport.

He wanted to crack an eye, to see if Ren was looking at him. If the reroute had been for him.

But he was too tired. And Ren would never admit to it.

He didn’t open his eyes again until they landed, and may have fallen asleep. Previously, he wouldn’t have allowed himself to relax at all in front of Troopers and Officers. But he was exhausted and heartbroken, and cared more about the damage to his throat, knee, and back than what the others thought of him. A lapse today simply wouldn’t matter, amid all the other chaos.

When they arrived on the _Finalizer_ , Ren disappeared nearly as soon as the ramp made contact with the deck in the hangar. Hux didn’t bother to follow him. Ren wouldn’t want him to, and all Hux could want otherwise was a bed. So he reported himself off-duty and made his way to his quarters.

It shouldn’t have surprised him to find all of Ren’s things gone. Hux owned even less than he had with Ren, and the space was empty and joyless, the rooms of a lonely man with no hobbies outside his job. He sighed, removed his greatcoat, and made his way to the ‘fresher.

He used water in the ‘fresher, letting it pound into his injuries and cause a nearly unbearable ache. That, combined with the lack of Ren’s grooming products - one set of shaving tech, Hux’s hair product sitting by itself, his hygiene products sitting neatly without the messy chaos of Ren’s things - caused him to comm Ren. He was lonely, tired, nearly delirious. He really shouldn’t have. But.

_Where’s your stuff? When did you move out?_

He wasn’t expecting a response. Ren was probably still bad at checking his messages. He crawled into his large bed beneath cold sheets, curled up on his side, and was asleep in moments despite the pain and the residual stims rattling through his thoughts.

He was startled awake sometime later by the door to his bedroom shrieking on its tracks, the lights going up to twenty percent. Ren appeared in the empty doorway, a hand out.

“Ren-”

In a moment, faster than Hux’s sleep-deprived mind could process, Ren was on the bed, and Hux was pressed against the headboard, Ren’s clothed knee between his bare thighs. Ren’s hands weren’t around his throat, but were instead wrapped around his bare biceps, and Hux was pinned roughly. It wasn’t too different from how they normally fought, and Hux squirmed despite himself. He also noted that there was no cold press of the Force. Ren had perfect control of himself.

He leaned in, furious, nearly snarling into Hux's face. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, what manipulation you’re trying for. I’m done with it. You can’t fool me. You’ve never fooled me.”

Hux blinked. They both knew that wasn’t true. But Hux wasn’t fooling him now.

“I’m sorry about the message. I was tired, and I shouldn’t have. I was- obviously dwelling on old times-” This was only partly true, and he felt Ren’s grip tighten, saw his face harden in the low light. “But my judgment is poor. Disregard it.”

Ren was silent.

Hux licked his lips, and tried again at the truth. He dropped his voice to nearly a whisper, gave up the pretense of keeping the hoarseness from it. “It’s true, Ren. I… woke up on a transport aboard the _Supremacy_ , and my memories are… different now. I don’t know when you moved out.”

Ren made a low growling noise. He released one of Hux’s arms (the right, his hand had been where he'd had the scar in the last life, and where his arm had been removed in the life before that). His fingers went to Hux’s temple, to tear Hux's memories from his head. Even before, when Ren wouldn’t have hurt him, he’d done this. Ren was not gentle.

His fingers paused and he studied Hux's face, as if Ren was still considering putting Hux through the pain of this. Hux would take it, that and more, if it made Ren believe him. Still, he tried to appeal to Ren’s sentimentality.

“Is reading my mind not enough?”

Ren scowled, his brows drawing together, but he looked confused for a moment. “You’ve fooled me before. This won’t.”

“Then,” Hux grabbed his wrist. “Look, Ren. You’ll see that it’s true. I _am_  different. I don't care about Starkiller, but I care about making you understand me. I regret what I’ve said before. I’ve learned my lesson. I’m loyal. To you. I would never betray you.”

Ren lifted his lip, and his fingers flexed. "You don't care about Starkiller."

Hux closed his eyes. "I do love you, and you can look for that, too.”

He heard Ren inhale, but only part of it, as if Ren's breath cut off midway. But it was Hux's perception that cut off. There was... so much pain. it was as if Hux had poured fuel into the fires of Ren's rage. Ren entered his mind, and he was not gentle.

It hurt. It hurt as it hadn’t before, nearly as badly as it had when the Supreme Leader had done it… years ago? Was that in reality, or in a Ventu reality? He heard himself screaming just as Ren’s interrogation suspects did.

Ren wasn’t hurting him aside from his mind, but it was… awful. Previously, he had been sure Ren didn’t intend to hurt him. This time, he wasn’t sparing Hux.

After an interminable amount of time, Ren stopped. Hux opened his eyes, feeling every nerve in his body throbbing, his brain pounding with three different types of headache, barely able to focus his vision. As he blinked and struggled to pull himself together, he could see that Ren looked distraught. Hux recognized that expression, from when he awoke from nightmares, or from after particularly terrible training sessions.

It had been how he looked when he’d sought Hux out all those years ago, after Luke Skywalker had betrayed him.

“It’s true,” Ren murmured, sounding defeated. “You believe everything you said is true, and you have the memories to back it up. You have…” He looked away, then back to Hux. “Why?”

“Yes,” Hux managed weakly, rubbing vaguely at his throat. Ren's perusal of his memories had made his other injuries hurt far worse. Perhaps that was part of the torture, too. He couldn’t speak any more words aloud, not even a poorly-timed snide comment.

“Yesterday, Hux. You said… yesterday, after we got off the planet, you said-”

“I know.” He remembered what he'd said, and he didn't want to hear it aloud ever again. Hux swallowed, closed his eyes. “Can I have water?”

“No.” Ren’s voice hardened, and Hux opened his eyes again. “I don’t know what you’re doing. I can’t read it in your thoughts-”

“Ren,” He took a whistling inhale, licked his lips again. Struggled to get his next sentence out. “You’d be able to read it in my thoughts. After all that.”

“It’s too good to be true!” Ren’s voice elevated, and he sat back on Hux’s legs. Hux’s knees ached, bent in the wrong direction by Ren’s weight. He tried to shift, but Ren wouldn’t let him up. Instead, Ren leaned forward again, either unaware or uncaring about the pain he was causing.

“Do you think, after everything we’ve been through, after everything you’ve _done_ , that I’d just accept a… complete transformation, just after the Supreme Leader’s death?”

Hux kept his silence, letting the whistling sound of his breath and Ren's own labored breathing fill the silence. Ren’s thoughts were still blocked, and he didn’t know what else to say. Ren had everything Hux could give him. And he was right. Hux's thoughts and opinions didn't change overnight, or ever. Ren’s expression slipped again, from rage back into confusion. If their positions had been reversed, Hux wouldn't believe it either.

Ren’s mouth worked, and he slid off the bed and stood awkwardly, studying the floor for a moment before he gathered himself to respond.

“You make an excellent point, General. Perhaps we should spend more time together. I don’t-” He glanced around, a little frantically, before his gaze fell back to his boots, a furious expression on his face. “I’m not coming back here. But I think we should…” Ren looked up again, and managed the right expression. Cold. Full of rage and mistrust. The chill from his Force pressed in, and Hux could see the thoughts of betrayal creeping back in to crush the tenuous beginnings of Hux’s apology.

“We need to spend more time together. _All_  of it. Every communication you send out, every word you speak, all of it will be done in my presence. I will not let you slide another knife in my back.”

“I won’t,” Hux reassured quickly. “I swear it.”

Perhaps Hux had been too quick to agree, because Ren grew angrier, and Hux felt the ghost of a freezing Force touch around his throat, already aching excessively. He made a small noise of protest, the loudest groan he could manage.

“This isn’t a reward, General. We won’t be sharing a bed. I suspect you won’t be sleeping much at all. I’m keeping you close. You are too dangerous, and I won’t let you manipulate me again.”

Hux shook his head, putting his hands to his throat. The Force hold disappeared. When Hux opened his mouth, Ren put a hand up and dropped his head, turning away.

“You betrayed me, Hux. You… brought me here, and you promised. You promised it was what we were both meant for. But you gave me to the Supreme Leader, and you used me for your own ends.”

Ren’s expression had shifted to hurt, his tone raw. This was more open and honest than they usually were with each other when they’d been close. Hux winced, and his pain went deeper, his desire to reassure Ren causing him to speak without thought.

He hadn’t betrayed Ren. He _hadn’t_. He would never-

“I’m-”

“Not going to fool me again,” Ren cut him off, his tone sharp, not allowing Hux to speak. “You would never betray me intentionally, no. I can read your thoughts clearly. You’re broadcasting them, as if you have nothing to hide.”

His head rose, and he met Hux’s gaze again, his eyes burning. He looked near tears.

“I know you too well. You act like you care now, and told me explicitly that you hated me half a day before that. But it’s the same as it always was, Hux. You don’t care how I feel, as long as I agree with you and curl up in your bed. Or when you suddenly decide for the both of us that you want me out of it.” He shook his head. “No. I’m done.”

Ren turned and quickly crossed the distance to the doorway of the bedroom. His fists clenched at his sides, and he glanced around. His gaze lingered at the spot where his weights used to be, then on the closet that should have had his robes in it. He did not turn back around to face Hux.

“Or you do have something to hide. I know better than to trust you. See you in a few hours, General. Sleep well.”

He disappeared into the main room, and a moment later, Hux heard the door to the outer rooms open and close, struggling against whatever damage Ren had caused when he’d entered by force - as if Hux would ever intentionally keep him out. No version of himself would have ever done that.

With a shaking hand, he groped for his datapad and ordered a maintenance droid to fix the door, at a loss for how to proceed otherwise. With that complete, he closed his eyes, leaned against the headboard and abandoned the datapad in his lap.

He was sorry.

This was, unmistakeably, his Kylo Ren, their life together. Full of Hux’s mistakes between the two of them. But instead of Ren ignoring them, he’d taken them to heart.

Hux deserved nothing less. He was so sorry for it, all of it. He’d regretted so little in his life, it was so much easier to accept that he was right and move forward. But this. He’d been wrong, and he was sorry.

He would continue to say it until Ren listened. After… everything, after so many different versions of Kylo Ren and their life together, it was cruel to be back in this one and find that Ren knew him completely and didn’t want him. Even after everything had gone so well. Even after the Supreme Leader's death.

Well. Hux would keep trying. He wouldn’t give up on Ren again. He wouldn’t betray him, especially now that it was just the two of them.

He made another small noise of protest, buried in the sound of the oxygen feed starting overhead. Of all days for this to happen, it had to be this one. Ren needed him so badly today, and Hux had ruined it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
>   
> 
> 
> This would be a better "told you so" if it hadn't taken me 325k to get here. Really, the joke's on me.
> 
> Additionally, the few lines of movie dialogue are from _The Last Jedi_ novelization, in an attempt to stay as close to the movie as possible.


	23. Part Five: Chaitivel - Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the destruction of Starkiller. Hux makes a decision to stay on the base as it implodes. He doesn't go through with it, but he does think about it and discuss it throughout.
> 
> If this isn't your jam, there's not a good way to skip it this time, so I'll stick a brief summary at the end of the chapter.

**Hux's Memories of Starkiller...**

 

 

“Supreme Leader. The weapon is failing, and planetary collapse has begun.”

The holo of the Supreme Leader flickered bright blue in the dimness of the huge chamber, which was collapsing along with everything else. Hux dodged an enormous piece of debris that fell from the ceiling. He wasn’t sure why he was bothering.

If Snoke thought anything at all about the loss of Starkiller, he gave no indication of it. His expression and posture didn’t change when Hux broke the news. Hux shouldn’t have been surprised. The Supreme Leader barely acknowledged Hux at all anymore. Sometimes, elements of his personality came through when he was giving orders, but not usually, and not today. Apparently the destruction of their primary weapon wasn’t a cause for any sort of strong emotion.

Instead, Snoke had a vacant, pondering look on his face. His fingers tightened around the armrests of his throne on the _Supremacy_ , a whole galaxy away from the catastrophe.

“Come to me with Kylo Ren.”

And with that, the holo cut off.

Hux swore. After a moment, he shouted the curse and listened to the profanity echo off the walls of the chamber. Perhaps the holo was still transmitting. He didn’t care.

Kylo Ren. Not bloody likely. Hux countermanded a direct order for the first time in his life. Everything was failing around him, and whatever was happening between Kylo Ren and the Supreme Leader ranked too low for Hux to consider.

As Hux stared at the now blank holoprojection platform, the power cut out, plunging the entire chamber into darkness. The low rumbling that indicated the planet’s imminent demise shook the room. Hux could feel the building's foundations rocking beneath his feet. An earthquake, he supposed. He thought of all the time he'd spent aboard the junk starships, with the terrible grav generators and faulty engines and failing oxygen. Sometimes, when the power failed and Hux was in the center of the ship, there had been a complete and total blackness similar to this, with the ship straining and groaning around him as the building was now.

All the time he’d spent as a child, worrying about dying in a starship, only to be buried alive on the surface of a planet.

He wouldn’t suffocate here, but if he waited long enough, a section of ceiling would come down on him. He didn’t have the emergency light he’d carried as a child. The survival part of his brain, the part of him that didn’t want to give up, told him he could use his datapad to exit the crumbling bunker and escape to the surface of the planet. He could still find a transport. He could still evacuate.

Instead, as if acting on an impulse he didn't want to acknowledge, he sat down blindly on the buckling floor, legs crossed, and waited for the ceiling to come down.

What was there after this? Hux didn’t know. He’d been working toward the eradication of the New Republic for so long. He had it, they’d done that. They’d wiped out five planets, Hux had given the order himself. The New Republic was gone, and the First Order could advance at their leisure.

But they didn’t have their weapon anymore, and they needed that. It would take years to build another, and for what? Hux didn’t want to fire it again. But the whole fucking campaign relied on that threat. They didn’t need to kill any other non-combatants as long as they had Starkiller. But the Resistance had destroyed it, and then escaped. They’d have the news all over the galaxy. There would be consequences, retaliation. A war.

Hux had shed enough blood.

He hadn't slept in so long, but the fatigue that dragged at his thoughts nearly constantly had left him. He was breathing hard, panicking, and his hands were shaking. He clenched them around his knees to still them. The walls groaned around him, and he thought of those long-scrapped starships of his childhood.

He needed a goal. He needed to advance. But this had been… him, for so long, and it was gone. He was in shock after the sudden change of his circumstances. A complete and total victory to crushing defeat. It was impossible. What did he have left, if his unshakable faith in Starkiller had been obliterated?

No. He was the Commander of the base, and he would stay here.

He waited for the usual surety that took hold when he made a decision, the confidence that he was doing the right thing. Confidence had always been what he relied on most. He had to be right, because what else was there?

He was right about this, too. But there was no surety, and no peace with this decision. The panic stayed with him, choking him and whispering that he needed to leave, that he would die in the dark. He ignored it. This was the right decision.

His hands shook so badly, even clenched around his knees. His body remembered survival, and it was craving light, telling him he was suffocating, that he would fail if he stayed here.

Ha. He’d failed, and he deserved this.

Without his permission, his shaking right hand pushed open the front of his greatcoat, palm pressed to the front of his tunic. He could feel his ID tags against his skin. The top one slid off the focusing crystal. Hux pushed the thick fabric of his tunic with his gloved hand, working the tags apart so he could feel the focusing crystal against his bare skin. Sometimes it was warm. Today, it wasn’t.

Ren. Ren had been blocking him all day. Ren had been blocking him for a long time. He missed him, sometimes, when he was too busy to do anything about it. He slept poorly without Ren, and his annoyances always seemed more trivial when he vented to Ren in private and Ren mocked him. Hux hated it.

What would Ren say about this? There wasn’t anything trivial about today, either the defeat or Hux’s decision to stay on the planet. It was difficult to picture Ren’s reaction. Hux found he didn’t really want to. Ren had probably already evacuated, perhaps in his new TIE Interceptor in pursuit of the Resistance. Hux hadn’t noticed an order or directive, but he’d been focused on the ground activity. He might have missed it.

Suddenly, knowing what Ren had done to try and defend the base seemed of paramount importance. He felt the walls closing in, another chunk of the building falling to the floor, the sound of the impact echoing around the huge holochamber. How much had this cost? How many credits and lives were being wasted, on top of the billions that had already been lost?

Hux pulled out his datapad, feeling acutely lonely and panicked suddenly. The brightness of the screen seared his vision for a moment, blinding him before his eyes adjusted. He kept his gaze pointed down, not wanting to know what the chamber looked like. He dismissed dozens of emergency notifications without reading them before he could access his comms and security logs.

He snorted. He thought about typing a message to Ren. Again, he failed to imagine what it would say. They hadn’t really spoken privately in a long time, and the words weren’t coming to him. His thoughts kept jumping skittishly away from the subject.

Perhaps a more facetious tone would work. His finger hovered over the comm protocols. Good luck, Ren? I’ll miss your terrifying powers, your annoying contrariness, your big dick, and your sad eyes? By the way, Snoke asked for you, and I’d rather die than go through that again, thanks?

Sending a comm would be too sentimental. It hadn’t been like that between them, even at the best times. But it was that or nothing, and something tightened in his chest at the thought of not saying goodbye to Ren.

He sat, and the room crumbled around him, and still the words did not come. Depressing. Ren was the sum total of his private life. Hux was sorry to have failed at that too, in the end. Everything ended in failure, and he should have known all along.

Ultimately, he sent nothing. He decided to look for Ren’s ship instead, and located its nav data, impressed that the Starkiller holonet was still functioning.

He frowned. Ren’s ship was still in hangar Esk. Had Ren taken another ship off planet? Led another attack, taken a large transport and boarded a Resistance ship?

There was no trace of either Ren’s orders or Ren’s requisitions. Hux searched, growing more frantic. When had Ren left the planet?

He came up with nothing, blinking, his eyes watering at the brightness of the screen in the dark. Small debris fell close to his left side, and he jumped.

Where was Ren?

He closed his eyes and searched his thoughts again. Closing his eyes was dangerous when he was so tired. It would be so easy to lie back and fall asleep. But he was still to panicked for the fatigue to take hold, and searching his thoughts for Ren's presence was easy. But Ren was blocking him, and it felt as if he were far away. Hux tried to penetrate the barrier. He’d never done this before, never that interested in indulging Ren’s pouting sessions. But it was suddenly important to do so, and he thought if he tried, there wasn’t anything that could separate them, including distance or Ren himself.

He found the edges of Ren’s emotions and pulled back immediately, an overwhelming, frigid cold causing his thoughts to seize. Whatever Ren was feeling felt like a primitive scream of pain and rage.

Hux's eyes sprang open and he exhaled, desperately trying to rationalize that. Ren was angry that the base had been lost. Hux would be too, if he hadn’t made his decision already.

Hands shaking, he looked into the security feeds. Looked for Ren.

He found the last of the feeds taken over the thermal oscillator. Ren standing with Han Solo.

There was audio. Hux held his breath as Han Solo asked Ben Solo to come back. He missed him. His mother missed him.

Hux saw Ben Solo waver.

The holorecorder was far away, and didn’t have a good viewing angle. But Hux’s heart was in his throat as he saw Ren’s face, and the sad eyes of Ben Solo studying his father. Hux thought his eyes might be filling with tears.

“I know what I have to do, but I don’t have the strength to do it. Will you help me?”

Hux almost threw the pad across the room. Traitor. _Traitor_. Ren had. Ren had _fled_  with the Resistance, he’d-

Ren wouldn’t. Ren would never betray Hux. Ren wasn’t a traitor. Hux was more likely to be a traitor than Ren.

Ben Solo-

 _Cardinal_ -

No.

There was a fraught moment where Hux almost cracked the datapad. But ultimately, he exhaled and watched the lightsaber come through Han Solo’s back, saw Han Solo touch Ben’s face as he fell.

Fuck.

Ren would.

He’d.

He’d talked about it before, of course. Killing his family. Many times, about Luke Skywalker. Even his mother, on occasion. But he’d only spoken reluctantly of his mother. And he’d… never spoken of Han Solo. Han Solo was just some smuggler. As far as Hux knew, he’d fled the New Republic just as permanently as Ren had.

Kylo Ren wasn’t… that. Kylo Ren couldn’t do it. No matter what he’d claimed.

Ben Solo had very nearly left the base with Han Solo, who’d been with the party who caused the implosion. Who'd brought destruction right to Hux's door.

Ben Solo. The only person who had ever been truly good to Hux. 

Hux stood. He nearly fell. He hardly noticed. He punched in another search. There was a tracker on Ren’s belt. Not even Ren knew about this. He’d put it there when he’d given the belt to Ren over ten years ago. Ren was a filthy creature of habit, and the tracker was still there. Ren had given Hux that focusing crystal all those years ago that allowed him to stalk Hux across the galaxy and show up after a year's absence. It was only fair that Hux do the same to him.

The protocol was locked under several layers of security in his personal files, along with the holo of himself and Ben Solo kissing in front of the late New Republic Senate building. Hux, eyes closed and looking so young, leaning into Ben Solo. Ben Solo cupping the back of Hux's head, holding his hat on his fingertips.

Hux's hand froze over the screen when the image appeared, then shook as he dismissed it and brought up the tracking protocol. He ran it.

Ren was still on the planet.

Hux looked up into the darkness, the phantom white of the holoscreen burned into his vision as he saw nothing. Mentally, he prodded at Ren’s thoughts, like a tongue to a sore tooth.

Pain. Fury.

Cold. So cold.

The cold seeped into Hux’s bones immediately, and he mentally recoiled. He felt the ghost of a pain splitting his face nearly in half. Ren’s thoughts were nearly unbearable.

Ren was… somewhere. Dying. Alone.

Ben Solo had left him.

Hux swore again, loudly, yelling it into the echoing hallway. He ran blindly forward, stumbling and falling over a huge piece of debris. He hit the ground on his palms, and the leather caught and tore on loose debris, pain shooting up his palms and wrists. He heard the chamber coming down around him, more rapidly now, more final. He stood, this time using the holopad to avoid obstacles, letting it lead him into the base proper.

Most of the power was down. Some emergency systems were working, casting hellish red and blue light across all the sterile durasteel surfaces. Personnel ran everywhere. There was no _order_. He shouted into the crowd for a transport. There was one waiting for him, he was taken to the hangar to board it, the crew already aboard to pilot and guard it. They would have gone down with him, this pilot and the four stormtroopers and the pair of junior officers that waited for him.

He saw fear when he shouted that they needed to recover Kylo Ren. They didn’t want to stay on planet. They thought Hux was mad, that they would die here.

Hux didn’t care. Whatever had happened to Ren… he didn’t really care about that, either. But he found he couldn’t help his reaction. They would be getting Ren, or they would all die on Starkiller with him.

The tracker was working, and that meant that Ren was probably still alive, and that the clothing he was wearing hadn’t suffered some catastrophic failure, like falling into the mantle of the planet.

When they reached the coordinates the tracker led them to, Hux all but ran down the transport's ramp into the explosive heat of the surface, the crust splitting around him, the pilot screaming against orders that landing was suicide, that they couldn’t stay here. Ren was there amid the red glow of the lava pouring from the fissures in the surface, lying in wait for the imminent explosion with the endless evergreen forest burning around him. Hux called for the Troopers, who followed quickly, conditioned to respond to Hux’s voice over survival instincts because that was the one fucking thing Hux had done right.

His knees buckled beneath him as he approached Ren. He waved the Stormtroopers forward weakly, ordering them to take Ren aboard. Ren certainly looked dead, his face seared open, his tunic a mess, and obviously bleeding into what was left of the snow. The four Troopers carried his lifeless body between them, all but running back onto the ship.

Ren’s lightsaber had been discarded nearby. It was a miracle that Hux spotted it, in a fraught moment when he had to look away from Ren’s arm hang limply from his body, the fingertips nearly brushing the ground as he was carried away. Hux put his hand over the focusing crystal at his chest, then crawled over to retrieve the hilt of Ren’s weapon. He tucked it into the pocket of his greatcoat. The metal was hot enough to sear his already injured palms through his gloves. He was sweating, his skin searing in the heat. He wasn't sure that they would make it.

But. Even amid the lava, the explosions, the very air that was causing his exposed skin to blister and his boots and gloves to melt as he quickly dragged himself back onto the transport ramp, he was _cold_. It hurt, nearly enough to paralyze him. The cold felt like it was breaking his bones, locking his muscles, driving spikes of agony into his thoughts.

Ren couldn’t be that annoying and be dead.

Hux was unable to stand and took too long on the ramp, so one of the Stormtroopers ultimately drug him aboard as the pilot lifted off from the surface with the ramp still extended. The pilot’s voice was loud enough to be heard from the main hold, her speech a mix of what sounded like both profanity and prayer in a language that Hux didn’t recognize and probably should have been conditioned out of her years ago.

The Stormtrooper that had drug him off the ramp helped Hux into the Commander’s suite, where Ren, still unconscious, had been laid out in the narrow bed. A junior officer was kneeling next to him with a med kit.

The med kit was paltry, the collection of bacta patches and tranqs very nearly hilarious in contrast to Ren’s injuries, which may still prove to be fatal. But the Force sickness still radiated off of him, and if Hux squinted to focus his vision, he could make out the rise and fall of Ren’s chest.

Ren’s injuries looked even worse under the harsh, bright lights of the transport, flickering slightly now as they made the jump to hyperspace. The entire left side of his robes was a mess of blood from the waist down. The wound on his face and shoulder wasn’t bleeding, but the flesh was blackened and evil-looking. Ren had been burned by the heat of the imminent explosion, his skin blistered and fabric melted into his back and thighs. There was a smell of cooked flesh. Ren was wet all over, either from a fever sweat or the heat of the planetside air or the Force sickness, it was hard to know. Droplets of water clung to the curls of his dark hair. Hux couldn’t get close to him, and worried he wouldn’t be able to do what was needed without passing out.

But the junior officer couldn’t safely treat Ren, and neither could the Stormtrooper. Hux gave sharp orders, and he was lowered to kneel next to Ren’s bed. The junior officer handed Hux the med kit, and both she and the Stormtrooper left Ren and Hux to their mutual agonies.

With his hands shaking, and still in his singed and torn gloves, he dumped the med kit on the floor and found the tranquilizer. He was still certain that, even on the edge of death, there was no part of Kylo Ren that would hurt him. Wave after wave of the paralyzing Force cold came from Ren, and Hux clenched his fist around the dose and closed his eyes, willing himself strong enough to do it.

Abruptly, Ren gasped and sat up. Hux recoiled, sinking back on his heels and staring up in shock. Ren’s eyes were blown wide, staring straight ahead at nothing. Ren’s right hand rose, and he grimaced and made a small noise, coughing slightly and wincing as he grabbed his shoulder with his left hand. He moaned pathetically, closing his eyes and hanging his head forward.

“Ren?” Hux asked. It was still cold. Ren’s abrupt return to consciousness had neither improved nor worsened the invasive Force hold he had over Hux’s body.

Ren turned to look at him, face terrible. He was pale and sweating, the wide red and black wound standing out in stark contrast against his pallor. The flesh was ragged and the wound was deep, and Hux couldn’t stop staring at it. After a moment, he realized it was a <i>lightsaber</i> wound, the cauterized flesh unmistakable. Had Luke Skywalker come planetside with the others? Had Ren found him? Is that what he was doing by himself, in the middle of the woods, dying?

Ren pivoted on the cot, swinging his legs to the floor. Hux closed his eyes and leaned backwards, bracing himself with his free hand against the floor. Ren's proximity made the cold unbearable. None of Hux’s usual frantic blocking was working.

“The scavenger,” Ren rasped. “I need the scavenger. She’s strong with the Force, but untrained. I can be her teacher. Where is she?”

“The scavenger girl? You didn’t kill her?" The scavenger had been planetside, Hux had seen that on the security notes. But why was Ren asking about the girl, as if he had seen her and let her escape?

Unless...

"Wait - did _she_  did this to you?”

Of all the shocking things that Hux had learned today, that may have been the biggest. How could a young, untrained girl beat _Ren_  with a lightsaber? Had it been his own? Had she somehow taken Ren's weapon from him and defeated him with it?

No. That couldn’t be it.

“No,” Hux said quickly, feeling foolish. "Luke Skywalker was planetside. Did you confront him?"

Ren’s face darkened. He raised his left hand and studied it, flexing the fingers. Hux looked at the hand nervously. Ren wasn’t in his right mind. He was badly injured and wet all over. Hux didn’t know how much blood he had lost. It was still running from the wound on his side. He needed serious treatment immediately.

“Ren, I need-”

“ _Skywalker_ ,” Ren hissed. “The scavenger will help me defeat him. I’ve seen it.”

“Since when can you see the future?”

“I’ve _seen_  it,” He insisted, his gaze focusing on Hux again. “Where’s my lightsaber? And my helmet?”

“We have it. I have it. Your saber. The helmet… I don’t know. Didn’t you throw that down the oscillator shaft? It wasn't with you.”

Ren put a hand to the uninjured side of his face gingerly, wincing. “I need it.”

“Fucking _obviously_! Lay back down, you’re-”

“I need my helmet.” He looked back to Hux, his expression distant again. “And I need that scavenger. She will help me find Luke Skywalker. The map is in a droid on Jakku.”

“Ren.”

“Where is the scavenger!”

He was shouting now, trying to stand. Hux, kneeling at his feet, lunged forward, grabbing his arm, panic offering him temporary relief from the Force cold that threatened to paralyze him. As Ren looked down at him in confusion, he used the moment of distraction to shove the dose of tranquilizer into Ren’s arm and depress it.

Ren stared dumbly at the dose, then at Hux, obviously not understanding what had just happened to him. After a moment, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed backward onto the bed, hitting the metal headboard at a bad angle as he went down. Hux winced, but the cold still had him in its grip. He waited patiently for several moments, and the cold abated by degrees as Ren fell further into unconsciousness.

The ship lurched, and Hux wondered if they’d already left hyperspace, then realized he had no idea what their destination was.

He sat back on his boots. He was breathing heavily, relieved to be free of Ren's Force sickness. He was soaked through himself, from sweating in the heat of the surface and from fear. The knees of his uniform pants were melted and singed. He smelled burned rubber from his boots. Mostly, he smelled Ren’s wounds, and the sour stench of sweat, either from Ren or himself he couldn’t say.

He was alive. He'd left the planet. He hadn't even been able to witness the death of Starkiller from space.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The destination turned out to be a nearby grouping of transports that had fled the system as Starkiller imploded. Since there had been the full energy of a star at its core that collapsed along with it, the area was unstable and unusable. Hux hardly noticed as his datapad chimed with the roll of survivors aboard each ship.

He intervened before the fleet could be redirected to the _Supremacy_. They would rejoin the _Finalizer_  and the nearby larger vessels in his own quadrant. He would not run to Snoke with Kylo Ren. It was still insulting to have been given that order in response to Starkiller's demise.

There was a fraught three hours where Hux did his best to triage Ren on the transport. Ren was very near death, and Hux had nothing to close his wounds - a limited amount of bacta, and a few other things. He saved the bacta patches for the wound on Ren’s side, but he was bleeding too badly, and the patches didn’t work well. There was a small amount of synth-blood on the ship for extreme emergencies, and Hux gave him the transfusion. Ren hated the transfusions and claimed that they affected his Force powers, but it would be to Hux’s advantage if the synth-blood muted the cold imbalance that was affecting Ren. That could potentially kill both of them.

Ultimately, the only thing he could do for Ren was dose him with painkillers, keep him tranquilized, and keep his heart beating when his pulse became slow and thready.

On the _Finalizer_ , Hux rushed Ren into their medical suite and requisitioned a med droid to treat him. It proved to be more difficult than it should have been, since there were many wounded evacuees from Starkiller and the _Finalizer_  was short of bacta. Hux stayed in the suite to ensure that Ren remained unconscious as the droid treated him, ordering it to save Ren’s life and heal the wound in his side. The rest of Ren's injuries remained untended, including his burns, grazes, and the huge wound that cut across his face. No one saw Ren’s face but Hux, and Hux didn’t care if it healed cleanly. The lives of his Officers and Troopers meant more to him then Ren’s vanity.

Once Ren was stable, full of synth-blood and a cocktail of drugs, the droid announced that he would live. Hux dismissed it, then succumbed to the fatigue and stress of... the last hours? Day? Three months? Five years? He slept deeply but uncomfortably in a chair, not leaving Ren's side. His datapad was gone, and he had no other tech in the room that would summon him. He’d given the order to be undisturbed, had put Bariss in command and told her to order the fleet into Wild Space. He’d also ordered a block on all incoming transmissions. Hux didn’t want her to be hailed by the _Supremacy_. It was acceptable emergency protocol.

Hux woke hours later with a sore back and neck, aching shoulders, and an unpleasant stinging on his palms and knees where the surface of Starkiller had melted through his uniform. He laboriously unfolded himself from the chair at Ren’s bedside and changed into a spare uniform he kept in the suite. He knew how he must look - hair a mess, exhausted, sweaty and rank, but he didn’t bother to look in a mirror or make himself otherwise presentable when he left the room in search of a datapad. In the chaos of the medical wing, Hux was sure even a Resistance detonation would go unnoticed. He grabbed a stray unattended datapad, entered his security protocols, and waited for the data to synch as he once again retreated to the privacy of Ren’s bedside. There, he began running damage control on their supplies, number of personnel, and courses of action.

Hux was surprised to be greeted with good news. They had the location of the Resistance base on D’qar. Canady was already enroute with a fleet of Dreadnoughts. The Captain would take his time, monitor the system, and make sure as much of the force was at the base as possible before he made his attack. They would never know what hit them. Complete eradication of the Resistance would take Canady a week, maybe two.

Most of the other fleets were now positioned at the edges of the Outer Rim, waiting for word from High Command to begin advancing on Republican space. It would happen soon. Hux’s own fleet was nearly gone, but his ships could recover and regroup in Wild Space, and there was more than enough ships and bodies to otherwise ensure victory.

They had survived. Plans were still moving forward.

No word from the _Supremacy_.

Eventually, Ren woke up when the drugs ran out of his system. There was nothing else to give him - the  _Finalizer_  was nearly out of anything that could conceivably have a medical use until the supply run to the nearby Stel system was completed. Only a few potentially life-saving quantities had been held back. So when Ren regained consciousness, it was with a lot of pain.

Hux jumped when he heard a groan, and glanced up from his datapad to see Ren staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. It wasn’t the blank, wild look he’d had on the transport, and his expression looked more self-aware. The cold crept back into Hux’s body, but not as severe as it had been on Starkiller, and only slightly worse than it usually was after Ren returned from Snoke. Hux’s usual defenses against it held with only minimal discomfort. He shivered, wishing for his greatcoat.

Ren blinked slowly, reaching up into the space above him with his left hand, then briefly with his right before the injury to his shoulder caused him to wince and drop it. He began groping at the side of the bed. Hux’s side.

“Ren,” Hux began, tone sharp. “We’re out of supplies to treat you. You’ll need to endure for several hours until the next shipment arrives.”

“Hux.” Ren’s voice was a rasp. He rolled his head to the side, wincing at the pull of the wound on his neck. “Hux. Where am I?”

“Where are you,” Hux repeated flatly. “Well. Starkiller’s gone. The Resistance blew it up. A single fleet and an ancient Correllian freighter was all it took to defeat that shield, it turns out. This room is larger than the medical suite on our largest Trooper transport. So that leaves the _Finalizer_ , doesn’t it?”

Ren opened an eye slowly. “The _Supremacy_.”

Hux snorted. “Do you think I was eager to run to the Supreme Leader after such a miserable failure?”

Hux found he couldn’t reign in his temper. He hadn’t felt like speaking to anyone in person since he’d left the transport, and he didn’t see any reason to control himself now. He’d wanted to go down with Starkiller. And yet, here he was, alive and on the _Finalizer_. At Ren’s side.

He stood, leaned across the bed, and pressed his gloved palm into the dressed wound in Ren’s side. Ren howled, and the cold grew more intense, the pressure from Ren’s Force causing the frame of the bed to groan. But as expected, Ren would never hurt him for this.

“This _hurts_  because we are out of painkillers, tranquilizers, bacta, blood, and anything else that I could use to keep you alive. Because _thousands_  of our people died when Starkiller fell, and we are treating more wounded than I’ve ever seen. Do you remember Starkiller failing? You should, without the painkillers.”

Hux’s anger sought Ren’s thoughts, tried to parse whether Ren really did remember. But Ren’s thoughts were a blank, and even the cold was abating in the face of Hux’s fury. Hux’s fingers came to rest over Ren’s abdomen, Ren’s flesh hot even through Hux’s new gloves. Ren was naked under the sheet. Hux had burned his clothes, along with his own damaged uniform.

“That base is _gone_. All the years of work, research, and labor were wasted. The power it gave us was destroyed along with it. We were meant to wield Starkiller as a threat, and now we cannot. Our entire strategy was built around _having_  the weapon. That base was my life, Ren, and it fell under less than a dozen Resistance soldiers that infiltrated and _succeeded_  because _you couldn’t be bothered to stay and lead a defense against them when it mattered the most_!”

Hux was shouting into his face, his vision blurry. Ren blinked up at him blearily, thoughts moving sluggishly through his head. Hux couldn’t pick them out, even under the intensity of his fury. Hux could sense confusion, and little else.

“Starkiller’s… gone? How? I remember we fired it, and…” Ren closed his eyes, and the chill crept back over Hux’s bones, accompanied by a tremor that threatened to seize his heart. Hux swallowed. He’d felt this, too, when they’d fired the weapon. He’d thought it was his own reaction. Apparently, it was Ren, and whatever he’d been feeling on the _Finalizer_  when they’d fired it. He'd refused to come to the surface.

Because of course Ren hadn’t bothered to be there with him. Of course he’d felt some sort of unbalancing internal horror. Hux was tired of this, tired of predicting Ren’s moods and dragging Ren behind him, coercing him into doing what was right.

“Is the… is the New Republic gone, Hux?” This statement was so weak, so unsure, that it gave Hux pause.

He looked at Ren, really looked at him. He was pale, still sweating and feverish under the effects of the pain and the wounds. Hux hadn’t called for the droid in over a day, and they’d run out of medication, so it was possible Ren was suffering some sort of infection. The wound in his side had been deep, gouging out muscle and part of Ren’s hip and even hitting his liver. He shouldn’t have lived through it, and maybe he wouldn’t. His face, with that awful wound cutting across it, was as pale as Hux had ever seen it, and a sheen of sweat stood out slick on his forehead. His hair hung limp and greasy. His eyes were hazy, confused. Still so brown, even where the lightsaber strike had nearly taken one.

Hux straightened and pulled his hand away from Ren's stomach, losing some of his fury. Ren was a soldier who had been wounded in battle, and Hux was cruelly probing a life-threatening wound. Hux, who had barely slept in three years, and even now had only rested while hunched over in a chair. His judgement was compromised after everything that had happened. He’d donned a clean uniform, but hadn’t cleaned himself in… three days? Four? His own hair fell loose and greasy into his face, and he was sure he smelled. 

Hux took a breath, trying to reign in more his temper, and continued in a more even tone. “Yes, we fired the weapon. But the _point_  of firing it, the reason we had to kill all those people, is so that we could use the threat of it and never have to do it again. We were to be invincible. No planet would stand against us. And now…” He waved. “We don’t have it. This will be a war, as long and bloody as any in galactic history. I didn’t want that. Now all those… people have died for no reason.”

Hux had killed them, given the order. He pushed the thought aside. He would have lived with that anyway, even if everything had gone according to plan.

Ren licked his dry lips. “How? Starkiller had… shields. Across the whole planet. How?”

Hux’s voice flattened, not quite believing Ren didn’t remember this. A prod at his thoughts proved that this confusion was genuine. He really had forgotten.

“A freighter. An ancient Corellian YT-1300 light freighter penetrated the shields. Entered the atmosphere at lightspeed, as far as we can tell. It was on the surface in an instant. _You_  went to investigate it. You don’t remember?” Hux crossed his arms, stepping back from the bed slightly. He really did want to hear Ren’s version of events.

“A YT-1300,” Ren repeated, his brow furrowing. Hux could feel the confusion changing to something like disbelief, then anger, then a kind of self-loathing. “It was… my father’s.” His eyes moved to Hux’s, something hard in them, looking more like himself. “I did go investigate it. They weren’t aboard.”

“Yes. You found them. You killed your father, the elderly man who was the least threatening of the group. Thanks for that, by the way. You missed some of the other Resistance soldiers. They blew up the thermal oscillator after you left Han Solo’s body there.”

Ren’s Force grew suddenly colder, and pain spiked across Hux’s nerves and through his mind. Ren began pushing himself up in bed, grunting and breathing heavily as he carefully maneuvered himself. Hux could feel his excruciating pain even through the block he was attempting in his own mind, but of course Ren was sitting up anyway. Hux didn’t try to help him. He could tell that Ren was angry, and he wondered if he was trying to look more imposing. There was nothing threatening about Ren, sick and injured in his bed, though Hux knew Ren could probably still kill him with a thought if he wished.

“I saw myself kill Han Solo,” he said. The pain abated from Hux’s thoughts, but not the cold. That got worse. “I drew him close, and his death was a shock to... to him. That was. That was a vision I had.”

“Since when do you have _visions_ , Ren?” Hux said, frustrated, beginning to pace the room, pushing his hair out of his face. “You’ve never had visions before. You once told me that the ability to see visions was knowledge that Snoke was withholding from you.”

“I had this one. Of my- of Han Solo’s death.” Ren’s expression darkened. “Was it a vision?”

“No!” Hux shouted. “You killed him! You put your sword through his chest after begging him closer and preying on his sympathy!” That was what had happened. It hadn’t been… the other thing, Ben Solo trying to leave him behind. But if it wasn’t that, it was even more cold-blooded than what Hux had done to his own father, though Brendol had had no sympathy to play on, only pride. “You wasted time. You let the others get away while you had your whole scene with your father!”

Ren stared at him. Hux was breathing heavily now, and shouting again. He was angry, yes, angrier than he should have been about the death of one old man that had meant nothing to either of them. But that murder, it had been so unlike Ren, far colder a thing than Hux would have thought him capable. And Ren hadn't even hated his father, or seen him as an enemy. But it was…

If it wasn’t that, the terrible cold thing, it was the other thing.

“You told him you’d go with him, that you needed his help to leave,” he gritted out. His pulse hammered in his ears, and time seemed to stop. He hadn’t meant to bring it up. He didn’t want to know. But. He’d really thought, for a moment, that Ren had turned traitor and brought the base down around him. It had been gutting, the worst betrayal of Hux’s life.

He’d told himself that hadn’t been the case. Ren would never do it.

But he had to know.

“You saw it?” Ren’s brow furrowed again, and Hux couldn’t tell if Ren was currently sensing his fear. He took a breath, willing his voice to come out evenly.

“Yes, there was… a security recording from the oscillator. I watched it.”

The cold hit him in a wave, sharp and terrible. Hux pushed back against it as hard as he could, his anger spiking again. He didn’t want to deal with this. He was tired of calming Ren down after... after he'd done these things to himself, after he made his own irrational decisions. Tricking his father in for a close and very personal murder. Or contemplating betraying Hux on a massive scale.

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?” Ren’s tone had gained belligerence, his anger finally a match to Hux’s, though Hux wasn’t sure why Ren should be angry. It hadn’t been Ren’s base. Ren had let it fall.

“This…” Hux waved a hand between them. “The cold. The Force cold. Control yourself.”

Ren's expression darkened, and he looked down into his lap and began twisting the sheets between his fingers. He said nothing, his thoughts running to shame, self-loathing, a bitter kind of sadness.

Hux huffed. He was _upset_  about Han Solo. Fantastic. “Who did this to your face?” He didn’t approach Ren, instead gesturing to his own, tracing the slash. “Was Luke Skywalker with the Resistance?”

“Skywalker?” Ren’s expression looked confused again, and his right hand came up gingerly to feel the uncovered wound. “No, Skywalker wasn’t there. You asked me that on the transport. This was…” His vision sharpened again, and he sat forward with a wince, staring intently at Hux. “The Scavenger. She had Luke’s lightsaber. It should- it should have been mine, it was my grandfather’s lightsaber. But she had it. She’s untrained but powerful. I need to teach her.”

“The… scavenger. The girl from Jakku." Hux hadn’t quite believed it before, had dismissed the conversation on the transport as pain-induced rambling. Where would a Jakku scavenger get a lightsaber? Only Luke Skywalker would show up at his base and fight with a lightsaber.

“You let an untrained scavenger from Jakku defeat you in lightsaber combat.” It wasn't a question, Hux realized. It had happened.

“She’s powerful.” Ren seemed to miss Hux’s incredulity. He turned away, staring at the door, then glancing around for the datapad. “She needs to be recruited. She'll be unstoppable once we begin working together.”

“Recruit her? Ren, if she-” He stopped, furious, and started pacing again, boots ringing loud against the floor. It was still cold, but Hux was heedless of it. “She beat you in a _lightsaber duel!_ No one should be capable of that! And she did it untrained. She doesn’t need to be recruited, she needs to be _killed._ ”

She’d defeated Ren, humiliated him, left him burned and bleeding in the snow of a dying planet. It was… _no one_  should be able to do that to Ren. Ren was invincible in single combat. Luke Skywalker was an old man and far past his prime, Hux had only been worried about Ren's emotional response to that confrontation. Snoke was potentially the only person who was a match for Ren, and might still be able to bring him down with his considerable Force abilities. But Ren was getting better, and Snoke would be surpassed soon.

The fact that an untrained young scavenger girl from Jakku could beat Ren was… terrifying. Hux didn’t want her on this ship, or any of the other ships. There would be no way to control her.

“It wasn’t- It wasn’t _like that_ , I was wounded before the duel-” Ren was getting defensive, so he was obviously picking up on the edges of Hux’s thoughts. “The... meeting with Han Solo was more distracting than I thought.” His gaze fell into his lap again. “And I took a direct hit to my side after that. The scavenger wasn’t dangerous. Isn’t. I can control her. We need her. I’ve found her, and we need her here.”

Hux prodded at Ren’s thoughts, and felt a barrier. He was hiding something from Hux, probably his thoughts on the fight. Or…

Hux frowned. “Han Solo. You were more _affected_  than you thought.”

Ren glanced at him sharply, then back down into his lap. “Yes,” he bit out.

The cold increased, and Hux walked over to the bed, bracing himself against the rail and gritting his teeth against the cold. He pushed back sharply against the Force intrusion, but was only able to partially block it now. The pain was excruciating, and darkness danced at the edges of his vision.

“Ren. Whatever you’re doing, stop it.”

“Stop what?” Ren's expression was furious, and he met Hux's eye. The question was genuine. He never seemed to be aware that he affected Hux like this.

“Stop with your… Force, it’s cold, it’s pushing into me. You’re blocking your thoughts, and all this-” Hux pushed off the bed, collapsed into the seat next to it. “Just tell me what’s wrong, and we can get all this over with. Go over your father’s death, your defeat with the girl, whatever crisis you’re having.”

“Crisis?”

Hux was in pain and at the end of his patience with Kylo Ren. “Yes. Since you are incapable of dealing with your own emotions, you will need to talk them out with me. I will tell you how to feel, and we will go from there.” It was cold and condescending. But Hux was cold, and he was furious, and he wasn’t sure where they were going from here. He should have stayed in that holochamber. It was all Ren’s fault.

“I'm not having a _crisis_ ,” he snapped, turning himself, drawing in a sharp breath at the pain, clamping a hand over his side. “Han Solo’s death was a _victory_. It was a connection to the Light that I’ve severed. It was an important step.”

“Important step.” Hux’s eyes narrowed, and something chilled in his core. Something that whispered he’d been right, he’d been right about Kylo Ren all along. “You knew he was on the planet. You are connected to him. You knew he was coming, and… wanted this. Ren. Did you lower the shields, and let the fighters onto the planet? Was it you?”

Ren’s eyes widened. “No. Someone lowered the shields?”

“Yes." Hux leaned forward, fixing Ren with his coldest stare. "You seemed to be inviting a challenge, wanting more of your family’s allies on the surface of my base. Was it you?” Hux’s voice had risen, and he hated how shrill he was, how absurd his accusation sounded out loud. But he was suspicious. The shields had fallen, and all of twelve Resistance X-Wings had defeated their paltry ground forces, which hadn’t been well-staffed because of the kriffing shields.

“I didn’t lower your shields, Hux. I don’t care about the Resistance. I only wanted to confront my father.”

But Hux was far past the point of reason. He was certain that it was Ren’s fault the base had fallen, that was the only thing that made sense. “While you were off waging your little theological war with yourself and baiting your father, our very real base was destroyed, along with most of the people stationed there! There’s nothing light or dark about that, all of it is gone! And it was because you couldn’t be bothered to kill four people in an aging freighter! And here we are in med bay, you’re badly injured and I can’t have you…” Hux gestured, meaning the cold, meaning whatever nonsense Ren was spouting now, because nothing he’d said since waking had made sense, “I can’t have you like this in front of the crew. They need to see that you’re well, that you’re sound and that your decisions are confident. You need to vent, and I need to tell you how to deal with it, and we need to move on.”

“Move on from _what_?” Ren’s tone was dangerous, and he met Hux’s eyes again. Some of the cold abated. Hux didn’t think it was a good sign this time. “This is who I am, Hux. There’s no _moving on_. There will always be a battle with the Light and Dark, and I will always need to control it. The girl will be an important tool in my mastery.”

“Ren, this isn’t you, this is what Snoke wants you to be!” Hux’s voice was shaking. “You are strong enough, without… whatever Snoke is doing to you. It's tearing you apart. You don’t need to wage this battle with yourself or your powers. Just stop it!”

“Stop it? Because it's instruction from Snoke, and not you?”

“Snoke doesn’t have your best interests in mind. He’s using you.”

“And you're not? Really?”

Hux was suddenly cold, and it had nothing to do with Ren’s Force. “Of course not. If that’s even a question, we’re done here.” Hux gestured between them, and then continued bitterly, “I should have left you. We should have both died on Starkiller.”

“It’s not a question. You’ve been telling me what to do for years. You tell me we’re working for the good of the Order, and that I’m doing the right thing. You honestly think any of it is for my benefit?”

“And what would you do without guidance, Ren? You’d run out and recruit some nobody and let them kill you. You are incapable of making your own decisions or moving forward by yourself. I know it, Snoke knows it, and Luke Skywalker knows it. You made your choice, and I’ve always understood it to be me. You used to agree that I did what was right for you.”

“No, I never thought that. If you believe that you hid your selfish, manipulative nature from me for a second, you’re wrong,” Ren sneered. “But you were the only one who pretended to care, I’ll give you that. The other two weren’t that manipulative.” He looked away. “And you stopped, once you had Starkiller.”

Hux stood. “Years, Ren. If you think I put _years_  into caring for you-”

“See? You can’t even say it. You ‘put years into caring for me.’ You manage me. You told me what to do, like I'm one of your Officers. You can’t even bring yourself to frame it as a relationship. I do what you say and tolerate your humiliatingly transparent manipulation because I love you. But that doesn’t occur to you.”

Hux opened his mouth, closed it. Turned. His throat was tight. Emotion choked him. It was all his own, but he couldn’t parse it, didn't know what to do with any of it.

“I pulled you off that planet. I wanted to stay and fall with the base like a good Commander. But I had to go get you. You were dying. I saved your life, and nearly killed myself and seven other people to do it. Fuck you.”

“You saved the life of your pet Force user. _Thank you_ , that’s not transparent at all. I guess I’m in your debt even more now, right? Is that what you’re about to say?”

Hux spun, furious. “If-”

“Did Snoke order it?” Ren’s eyes were cold, flat. “Did he tell you to come and get me?”

The breath was pushed from Hux’s lungs. He couldn’t lie about it, Ren would know. But that wasn’t why he’d pulled Ren off. His throat closed up again.

“I thought so. Nice try. Do you think there’s a single person who’d believe you’d stay on that planet and sacrifice yourself _nobly_  with the fall of that base, instead of crawling your way back with the survivors to take control again? How many corpses did you trample to escape? Were you afraid that the Supreme Leader would have no use for you if you let me die? If you were no longer able to control me? He wouldn’t. Snoke would be thrilled if I brought him your head.”

Hux wanted to leave. Hux wanted to leave the _Finalizer_  and all of this behind him, go to some other ship. He wanted to jettison Ren out of an airlock. He wanted to slap that lightsaber wound on his face. He stepped forward to do the latter, but they were both so angry that he wasn’t sure that Ren wouldn’t hit him back.

Neither of them would forget this.

“The Supreme Leader can see what comes next. We need to get the girl. I need to train her. I killed Han Solo, and finding a powerful apprentice is the next step in my training. With the girl on my side, I’ll be unstoppable.”

“ _The Supreme Leader_. Of course Snoke wants you like this, a ranting, unstable mess.” Hux gestured to Ren, indicating what he was saying, the cold, all of it. “You can’t think for yourself like this, taking risks that… unbalance you, and are unnecessary.” It hurt that Ren had followed Snoke’s instructions on Starkiller, and it had led to all of this.

“The girl will-”

“The girl sliced you open and left you for dead, Ren! Why do you believe that is the beginning of a useful partnership?”

“You’re the one that thought I would run away with you after you slept with me three times.”

Hux’s mouth snapped shut. He felt the retort like a punch to the gut. Ren crossed his arms, dropping his head and glowering into his lap.

“Look how that turned out.”

“Yes,” Hux managed to reply. He spun on his heel and headed for the door again, knowing that neither of them were getting anywhere with this conversation. He needed to leave. He needed to not see Ren.

“Wait.”

Hux paused, gloved hand held above the door release. He clenched his jaw, hating himself, but he waited.

“I’m serious about the girl, Hux. I know you have leads on the Resistance. Give them to me.”

“No.”

“No?” Ren’s voice had developed the sing-song lilt, and Hux heard him shift on the mattress behind him. He felt the skin prickle at the back of his neck, followed by the barest caress at his temple.

“You know I can take whatever I want, Hux.”

Hux spun back around, his jaw set. An eerie calm had settled over him. He stood at attention, leveling his usual indifferent stare at Ren.

“Try it. Your uncle won’t be the only person that attempts to murder you in your sleep. And I assure you, I'm better at that than Luke Skywalker.”

Now it was Ren that looked as if he’d been slapped. Confusion and betrayal warred in his thoughts, and the look of dumb incomprehension on Ren’s face almost made Hux want to laugh.

But they were far beyond laughing now.

Eventually, Ren shook himself, expression clearing, then setting. “ _No_.”

Ren sat forward, blocking all his thoughts and emotions from Hux’s perception, outwardly very calm. The sheet was bunched around his waist, and his pale, exposed skin was still sheened with sweat, the mark of his wound curling down his face and around his shoulder like an accusation. He did not look well. The Force cold had lessened, and Hux wondered if whatever Ren was doing to block his thoughts had also blocked that.

Hux’s temper abated. Ren was always the most dangerous when he’d made up his mind. He’d obviously decided something just now. Perhaps he wanted to kill Hux. 

“Give the order to send the _Finalizer_  and the fleet to the Resistance base, wherever that is. Send an interdictor ahead so they can’t flee the planet, and blockade the system ahead of us. No one gets in or out. I will do a ground-based search for the girl myself, and we will bombard the base from orbit once I have her secured.”

He pushed himself to the edge of the bed, staring at Hux expectantly, as if Hux would jump at his command. As if he’d even be able to stand now.

“No.”

“No?”

“No. That is not an order I will give, Ren.”

“Then I’ll give it.” He did stand at that, all his wounds fully visible, healed as well as Hux and the droid could manage. The burns and cuts on his back and arms were still raw and painful-looking, untouched by bacta and only treated until they stopped seeping blood and fluid. The wound on his side had been mostly covered, but with the shortage of supplies, raw flesh was visible at the top and bottom of the dressings, which were saturated and showing orange.

And he was naked, of course. Hux glanced down, because he couldn’t help it. Ren was so often naked when they ate together in the mornings.

When they used to eat together in the mornings. Something clenched inside him. He dismissed it, his gaze sliding back up to meet Ren’s.

“You’ll give it naked? No. You’ll do no such thing. I’ll countermand it. Get back in the bed.”

Ren’s eyes were hard and certain, his expression dark. “Who do you think they’d listen to, if it came down to it? You? Or me? Between the two of us, your the one that commands a base that no longer exists. I’m the Supreme Leader’s apprentice, and can kill people with my bare hands.”

Hux swallowed. Ren's power was absurdly undiminished by his nudity and sickness and injuries. Ren could march onto the bridge and give any order he liked, and no one would dare question it. He was beautiful and terrifying, always. But Hux held his ground.

“They’re programmed to follow my orders, not yours. Every single one of them. Even the old ex-Imperials.”

“They will fear for their lives. I will make sure of it.”

Hux’s hands clenched at the small of his back, the leather of his gloves creaking around his fists as he triggered the catch on the wrist holster he wore.

He feigned indifference. “You wouldn’t even make it to the bridge. You’re barely conscious.”

“Give me your uniform.” Ren extended his left hand toward Hux’s temple.

Hux took advantage of the block Ren had on his thoughts. He palmed one of the last doses of tranquilizer in his entire fleet, held back just in case Ren woke up like this. He lunged under Ren’s outstretched left hand, plunging the dose into his right forearm and depressing the trigger.

Ren looked at him, shocked, the block on his thoughts shattering and falling away, painful for both of them. After a moment, his thoughts of betrayal flooded Hux’s mind.

“Oh please, I’m saving you from yourself,” Hux muttered, pushing Ren backwards until the backs of his legs hit the bed. “You’ll thank me when you’re in your right mind.”

“My right mind,” Ren muttered, his eyes half-lidded. The tranquilizer was fast-acting, but not this fast. He was letting Hux push him around. The thoughts of betrayal fled, filled instead with tired resignation, low-burning anger, the usual self-hatred. He folded himself meekly back onto the bed.

“Whatever you’ve done, Ren. This war you’re waging with the Force. It isn’t you. You shouldn’t have listened to Snoke.”

“The Supreme Leader is-”

“I don’t care.” Hux pulled the sheet up over Ren’s hips, his fingers lingering over the dressing on his side, the orange color catching his eye again. He wondered if he’d opened the wound again when he’d pressed it earlier. He left his palm there.

“Snoke did give an order to evacuate you. He told me to bring you to the _Supremacy,_ but I didn't want you to go to him like this. You can recover first. The medical shipment is coming, and I’ll keep you tranquilized until you are well. If you wake back up and still believe everything you've said…”

Ren’s eyes closed. Hux continued, laying his other hand against the wound on Ren’s shoulder.

“Well. You’ll take a transport to Snoke, of course. He would send you away to get that girl right now, and he’d let you die at her hands, all the while promising you that she had the map to Luke Skywalker. He'd tell you that the two of you would find and defeat him. You won’t. You’re unbalanced, and you’re always weak like this. You’ll stay here. You’ll heal.”

Hux knelt at his bedside. He didn’t know what he was feeling, why he was doing any of this. Why didn’t he simply let Ren do what he wanted? What difference did any of it make anymore?

Still, he continued explaining to Ren. “By the time you wake back up, Canady will have killed the Resistance, and that girl, and probably Luke Skywalker with them. If Skywalker doesn’t die there, he will die eventually. He’s only one man. He is no threat to you or us any longer.”

Ren’s eyes stayed closed, and his thought slowed.

“He won’t betray you anymore.” Hux sighed. “You won’t remember any of this, of course.”

“Skywalker won’t betray me,” Ren mumbled, then was silent for a moment. Hux thought the tranquilizer had taken him, but then Ren’s eyes opened. “But you still can.”

Hux clenched his jaw, thinking of Ren accusing him of climbing over the corpses of his soldiers. He thought about Ren saying he was selfish, that he didn’t have Ren’s best interests at heart. That he was using Ren for his powers, and never considered that Ren only stayed with him because he loved him.

He thought about Ren, telling his father that he was being torn apart, and needed the strength to leave.

How Ben Solo had betrayed him.

Before he could reply, Ren’s eyes fell closed again, and his breathing slowed. Hux watched him for a brief moment, then sneered at his still form. He stood and left the room, deciding he’d wasted enough time on Ren for one day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basically, this is a giant fight between Hux and Ren, the kind of thing that they don't really come back from.
> 
> Hux ignores Snoke's orders to bring Kylo Ren to him, and instead holds him on the _Finalizer_ while he's being treated for his injuries. Ren doesn't like this, and tries to leave to find Rey. Hux eventually tranquilizes him, and when Ren recovers, he goes to train with Snoke by himself.
> 
> The way Hux remembers events, Canady is the one who wipes out the Resistance base and personnel elsewhere, while Ren is occupied with his injuries/Snoke and Hux is regrouping his forces.


	24. Part Five: Chaitivel - Chapter 3

When Hux woke up, it was in his own bed, in his own familiar suite on the _Finalizer_. The specter of fatigue still pulled at him, and he had a slight headache, both signs that his sleep had been thin and too short. As always, he reached to his right. Ren was not there. Cruelly, the depression in the mattress where Ren slept remained.

He tried to imagine a scenario where he’d thrown Ren out of his rooms and not replaced all their mutual possessions. It seemed impossible that he wouldn’t. The constant reminders of Ren’s absence were excruciating. But he couldn’t picture himself throwing Ren out, either. Even now, part of him wanted to go to the other Command Suite and apologize, to say whatever Ren needed to hear that would fix everything.

But Ren had made it more than clear the night before that Hux wouldn’t be welcome. Hux would do it, that and more, but he needed to be patient. He needed to feel out the edges of what Ren would allow.

He went through his morning routine, exhausted as always. He used the sonic shower and deprived himself of water. He looked at Ren’s products, still in their places, obviously untouched for some time. But even Hux’s usual products were a little old. They’d spent so much time on Starkiller. Apart.

There were still two chairs at the breakfast table. Ren’s breakfast was still listed with his own when he ordered the droid to bring food. He’d apparently forced himself to dismiss Ren’s order every morning without deleting it. Perhaps he’d been sure that Ren would come back, whatever had happened to them.

He ate in silence. Drank his tea in silence. Stared across the table and imagined Ren eating breakfast naked, sprawled out and comfortable and unselfconscious. The barbarian. Hux wanted to switch to Ren’s chair, but the idea was too depressing.

There wasn’t anything to look forward to. He wondered if he had any other friends in this version of the Order. Ren had been all he wanted or needed before, aside from his work. Were his social needs different, once things between he and Ren had ended? Or had Hux simply worked more? Would it have mattered, if it happened during Starkiller’s destruction? Would he have even noticed?

No, he wouldn’t have noticed. That’s why all of Ren’s things were still here.

Of course he didn’t have any other social acquaintances. Who would be his friend? Bariss? He’d worked much harder to keep her away than Ren. He’d killed her… twice? Three times? He wondered if she’d been on Starkiller this time. She hadn’t before, but that may have changed, or perhaps she’d never been recruited. Hux fully expected that the only other person who reached out to him would be gone.

There were a lot of things he should have been concerned about after the loss of Starkiller, the _Supremacy_ , a dreadnought, and so much of their fleet. Hux should have been doing damage analysis as he ate, or at least reassigning Trooper bodies and lining up new recruiting missions to begin the task of replacing the hundreds of thousands of Troopers that had been lost.

But he couldn’t bring himself to care about that just now. Instead, he did a brief search and saw that Bariss was still assigned aboard the _Finalizer_  as a secondary Commander. He decided to speak to Bariss first this morning, before losing himself in reorganization. She’d been nearly as immune to his worst habits as Ren, but his worst behavior toward Bariss had happened in the other lives, and hopefully not in this one, which seemed to be more-or-less as he remembered. The distance he kept between himself and Bariss had been professional (and, admittedly, petty and overly-paranoid), but he hadn’t pushed her away with personal attacks the way he had Ren. Perhaps he could still mend his… relationship, or friendship, with her. And talking to another person about anything but Ren would help.

Making a decision helped, but he still felt listless as he pulled on his greatcoat, made himself presentable, and left his now solitary suite.

Bariss, unusually, had been scheduled for an alpha shift, and hadn’t reported for duty on the bridge yet. Hux intercepted her just outside her own quarters. She looked harried, and more emotional than he’d ever seen her. But when her eyes landed on him, all traces of struggle vanished. Her posture straightened, and she made her way quickly to his side, matching her steps to his own. Hux hated the formality after he’d imagined a more social tone to their conversation. But they hadn’t been social in a long time. This was his doing.

“Colonel. I noticed you weren’t scheduled for the delta command shift.”

“No, sir. I deferred to Captain Peavey for the delta command.”

“Peavey?” Hux was surprised. Bariss would never give over command, she was too ambitious. “What were your reasons?”

“Personal.”

She didn’t elaborate, and Hux, hating himself, pressed. “Was it the fall of Starkiller, or the _Supremacy_? We have all had… _personal_  struggles in the last day cycle.”

Bariss glanced at him, and he could see her bracing herself to ask a question. He waited patiently, knowing she would phrase it in a way that gave away as little of her actual concern as possible.

“The Knights of Ren. Has… are you in contact with Kylo Ren? Does he know their status?”

“The Knights of Ren?” Hux was confused. He searched his memory, but even in his own version of events, could not remember where Ren had stationed them. A patrol? Had they been on Starkiller?

“No. Ren hasn’t mentioned any communication or specific orders for the Knights.”

Bariss’s jaw clenched, and her steps slowed. Hux frowned, coming to a stop next to her. It was awkward - the hallways were full from the shift change, and the Officers and Trooper patrols were making way for the two Commanders, pushing to the edges of the hallway and saluting, holding position until the General and Colonel passed.

Bariss came to a stop as well, facing Hux with her hands behind her back, her expression blank, her cap neatly covering her pulled-back hair. Her eyes, not quite as dark as Ren’s, gave nothing away.

“Sir. Permission to speak in private.”

“Granted.” Hux glanced around. They were in the engineering wing, between the Officer’s quarters and the bridge transport. It was newly vacant, as all the engineers had been killed on the surface of Starkiller. He gestured to an office door at random. “In here. We won’t be disturbed.”

Bariss nodded, and swiped her code cylinders against the access panel. It was a lab shared by four of the Engineering Officers, and had gone unused for at least two years, when operations from Hux’s fleet had migrated to Starkiller. Maintenance droids kept the lab pristine, but it nonetheless felt empty as the overly-bright electric lighting activated, illuminating the empty consoles and barren lab tables.

“Colonel. At ease.” Hux inclined her head to Bariss.

She didn’t relax her posture or her expression. But she did finally ask what was on her mind.

“Have you spoken to Kylo Ren?”

“Of course. We were on Crait together only yesterday.”

“That’s not what I mean. _Socially_. Can you ask him questions?”

It was on the tip of Hux’s tongue to ask his own questions. Was the status of their relationship so public? He’d never been certain whether more than a handful of staff knew they lived together. Was their current separation so bitter, so monumental, that even Bariss knew? Or was Bariss one of the few who would have noticed the change?

How had Hux been able to bear it? He could easily picture his old self, over-confident, sure that Ren would come back. It wouldn’t have mattered that Hux had initiated the split. Now, he could barely bring himself to get out of bed and do his regular duties.

Bariss would answer all of this for him, and think little of it. But part of Hux wanted to ask Ren instead, and have enough of Ren’s trust to get a real answer out of him. He wanted to solve their problems together, without Bariss as an intermediary.

“I can ask Ren questions, yes.” He didn’t know whether Ren would give a real answer, but he could probably learn what he needed easily enough. “What do you want me to ask him?”

“The Knights of Ren. Where are they? Are they okay?”

“The Knights of Ren?” He paused, confused, and then asked outright. “I don’t understand. Why do you want this information? Personally?” To his knowledge, he and Bariss had rarely spoken of the Knights of Ren outside their strategic importance or training needs. That she would take him aside to ask him this in private was baffling.

“It’s Jara.” She let a hint of exasperation show on her face. “I don’t know where she is, Hux. She isn’t answering her comms.”

“Jara Ren? You mean, the personal problem is-”

“Hux.” She let a hint of her personality show through. Her posture relaxed, and her arms crossed. “You know we’ve been together for years now. We’ve even had dinner with you and Ren. Did you honestly forget? Again?”

Hux kept his expression neutral. “No. Of course not.” He paused, unpacking the rest of that statement. “We had dinner? All of us together?”

Bariss cast her eyes to the side briefly. It was a tell for exasperation, one that only Hux would know. “Yes, but it’s been over a year ago. Jara said that she wanted to keep you and Ren civil human beings, and I agreed. I still don’t think it was healthy, the way you two isolated yourselves and worked yourselves sick.” Her expression changed, twisting. Her voice lowered. “Is she okay, Armitage? She’s not answering her comm. She hasn’t since we fired the weapon. Can you at least tell me she wasn’t there?” She put a gloved hand to her face, closed her eyes, and laughed. “Which means she could have been on the _Supremacy_ , or one of the six Destroyers that went with it. But.”

Her hand came down, and she blinked several times. Her expression was tight for a moment as she attempted to get her emotions back under control. Eventually, she re-focused on Hux. “I don’t want her to have been on that planet when it went. That would have been… an awful way to die. I’d rather you lied to me than tell me that.”

Hux thought of Ren, lying on the rocks while bleeding out and looking dead, of the horrible _cold_  of the Force that kept Hux back. And he thought of all the things they’d said to each other after, and how much they regretted it now. Had they said it here? Or had they just gone straight to the _Supremacy_ , without stopping at the _Finalizer_  first?

Hux opened his mouth to answer, to tell Bariss he was certain the Knights weren’t on Starkiller because they’d been directed elsewhere. But before he could, the door slid open behind him. He turned, fully ready to reprimand whoever had entered, cursing himself for not locking the doors behind them.

But it was Ren, expression dark, the livid red scar cutting across his face. He was still too pale, with dark circles under his eyes, and Hux guessed he hadn’t slept at all. He was also still blocking Hux from his emotions, though Hux could tell without access to his thoughts that Ren was very, very angry.

“General,” he growled, stalking into the room, coming to a stop between the two of them. He glanced dismissively to Bariss, then back to Hux. “Treason with your favorite Colonel in an unused office? You’re usually more careful than this.”

“Kylo Ren,” Bariss stepped forward too quickly, giving away her eagerness, but with her expression and motions otherwise masked. “We were just speaking about the Knights of Ren. Is there word of their location?”

Ren held Bariss’s gaze for a long moment before his gaze cut away, a gesture Hux recognized as uncomfortable avoidance. “Come with me to Aft Hangar C.” His eyes cut to Hux. “ _Both_  of you.”

Hux clenched his jaw, but followed silently. Ren’s accusations of treason weren’t worth answering, he’d certainly be reading Hux’s thoughts and find none there. It was in him to ask who would look after the bridge with the three of them in the hangar at the start of the first shift and the Order in shambles. But there were others, of course.

They used the transport system to reach the hangar, which was on the opposite end of the ship. The trip was silent and awkward. After Hux was sure that Ren was done being dramatic, he removed his datapad and began answering his comms, directing various clean-up and tactical efforts already in progress.

Ren stared at him pointedly, then removed his own datapad. Hux bit his tongue against a remark about Ren even having a datapad. When he noticed that Ren only held it without actually using it, he glanced over and saw that Ren’s screen was a clone of his own.

He glanced up to Ren’s expression. Ren was staring at him pointedly, so Hux rolled his eyes and went back to his comms.

“We will need to make an announcement about your new status, Supreme Leader,” Hux mentioned casually, dismissing a comm about the salvage efforts for the destroyer _Endurance_. There were no survivors.

“Supreme Leader?” Bariss questioned, sitting up straighter and looking between the two of them. Hux kept his gaze down.

“Yes. Snoke was… unfortunately killed during yesterday’s battle. Ren has stepped in as the new Supreme Leader of the First Order.”

“You did?” Bariss’s surprise was not well-masked. “And not Armitage? How did the two of you decide that?”

Hux glanced around the transport. It was empty. He hated that Bariss was using his first name. It was certainly intentional, since Hux hadn’t corrected her earlier.

“ _Armitage_  decided nothing. I am the Supreme Leader’s apprentice, and his rightful heir and successor,” Ren snapped, shifting to glare at her more fully.

Bariss took in his expression, then glanced to Hux and back, relaxing back into her seat. “Oh, I see. That wasn’t a _mutual_  decision. That explains your treason remark earlier. So Armitage was lying when he said he could ask you a question.”

“Of course he was lying.” Ren shot Hux a frown, then readjusted the grip on his datapad. “That’s what he does.”

“Colonel,” Hux snapped to stop the conversation, because he couldn’t very well correct Ren. He wasn’t as sure Ren would take it as he had in the past. And if he continued to insist on playing _Supreme Leader_ , it wouldn’t do to insult him in front of others. It might also help sway Ren’s opinion of him if he was respectful.

He got his temper back under control, and continued. “Colonel. You are no longer at ease. You will afford _both of us_  the respect our rank has earned us.”

Bariss huffed, but straightened her posture, staring straight ahead with her hands in her lap. Hux rolled his eyes again and went back to his datapad.

“Wait,” Bariss said after a moment, and betrayed her unease again. “With respect, General. Supreme Leader. Please. Is there any news on the Knights of Ren?”

Ren looked surprised as he glanced over to her. Hux felt the barest slip of his control, and a hint of Ren’s surprise and jealousy spilled into his thoughts. He was jealous of Bariss and her closeness to Jara. How she was willing to defy an order for news of her. He wanted that kind of closeness. Hux did, too.

Hux turned to face him, and Ren, sensing Hux’s awareness, sealed his thoughts again and turned to glare at Hux. Ren stared at him as he answered Bariss.

“The Knights were stationed in the fleet when the _Supremacy_  was attacked. Several of their vessels were lost. All of the Knights, along with the staff and crew aboard those ships, have been out of contact. I’ve had word that the Knights have gathered on the same transport and are coming here. I… sense that not all of them survived, but with the current communication difficulties among the fleet, I haven’t heard anything else. We wont know their status until the transport arrives.”

Bariss nodded, staring forward again. The answer seemed to satisfy her.

Hux went back to his messages, but the comms were full of bad news, and the silence between Ren, Bariss, and himself was overly awkward. He reminded himself that he was attempting to be less hostile to both of them, and tried to start another conversation with a bit of levity.

“Colonel, I’m surprised that the news of our new Supreme Leader hasn’t spread further.” Bariss was always one to keep up with Officer gossip. After a moment, Hux decided to acknowledge it as a strength. “You certainly would have heard, if there was any gossip.”

Bariss stared straight ahead, betraying nothing. “I’ve been preoccupied, sir.”

Ren frowned, but kept his eyes on his datapad. “The crew of the command shuttle saw what happened to those who defy me.”

Hux clenched his jaw to keep himself from replying. His side and throat still ached. They were experiencing the same bacta and medical shortages that Hux remembered after Starkiller, which meant his bruises and wounds from Ren’s abuse would have to heal naturally. At least he hadn’t had any broken bones.

And Ren’s statement was true. He supposed Ren throwing him into a console was enough motivation for everyone aboard that transport to keep their mouth shut. Hux was angry that he hadn’t thought of that himself.

Frustrated, he began paging through the messages again, breaking the silence after scanning through yet another list of Trooper losses. “Are there any of these comms that you’d like to address personally, Supreme Leader? It would help immensely if you began assisting with the rescue and restructuring efforts. Since you appear to be reading them all anyway.”

“No, you can do it. Continue, General.” Ren was smug, and Hux hated him.

Hux didn’t attempt any more conversation after that. Soon enough, their transport arrived in the hangar. The _Finalizer_ ’s own attack fleet had been deployed around Starkiller, and most of it had been destroyed with the base. The hangar was empty of both crew and ships. Hux was momentarily struck by the stillness. The hangars had always been some of the busiest areas of the Destroyer, and the lack of bodies surging around him - pilots, mechanics, supply officers, propaganda specialists, the naval staff - was profoundly sad. He’d had no reason to come to the hangar himself after Starkiller had been destroyed previously, and he had not witnessed the more tangible evidence of their losses himself.

Hux kept pace with Ren and Bariss, and if Ren was reading his thoughts, he showed no sign of it. As they made their way across the empty chamber, a shuttle limped into view, visible in space through the hangar’s atmospheric barrier. Most of its engines were visibly inoperable even at a distance. It began smoking as it came through the huge barrier stretched across the hangar entrance. The artificial atmosphere on the ship was too much for the damaged craft to handle, and it immediately collided with the deck and slid to a stop in the main traffic circle. The rough landing made a cacophonous grinding that filled the empty hangar with sound, sparking light, and the stench of burning oil. Few were around to see it. The comm officers watched from a group of consoles. Three mechanics rushed across the empty bay with fire equipment and stood by warily as the engines continued to cycle down. Slowly, two repair droids trundled out of distant bays and began their approach.

Bariss’s facial expression remained controlled, but her tension was obvious. By the time the ramp extended from the side of the ship, she broke regulation, taking several rapid steps toward the craft, nearly running to the foot of the ramp. Ren stopped several meters behind her, and Hux stayed by his side, hands clasped at his back.

One of the knights emerged, tall and alarmingly thin, wrapped in a short robe and wearing the flared helmet and giant bladed weapon that Hux had never seen used in battle. He had a hard time imagining its effectiveness, but the Knights were generally very successful on missions, so it must work. The Knight was limping, but their steps quickened as they stumbled down the ramp.

Hux had never bothered to ask which Knight was whom once they’d all adopted different weapons and begun using the helmets and robes modeled after Ren’s. He’d had no idea that this particular Knight was Jara Ren before now, but her build confirmed it.

Once Jara reached the foot of the ramp, Bariss took one of her hands in both of hers and squeezed, looking up into the taller woman’s helmet. Hux glanced around the hangar to see if anyone else was watching them, embarrassed on their behalf. It was a public display of affection, the sort of thing that those raised in the Order tended not to indulge in. To show one’s self like this in front of others was… difficult.

Jara, having been raised in the New Republic, had no such restraint. She grabbed Bariss around the waist, lifting her and spinning her, setting her down and pushing their foreheads together, seeming to forget that she was wearing the helmet. Bariss reached up and unlatched it, throwing it to the side.

Jara Ren’s head was shaved, the close crop of her dark brown hair sticking out around her skull. Her face was gaunt, her eyes haunted and bruised. But she kissed Bariss, and Bariss kissed her back, her arms wrapping around Jara’s neck and shoulders, Jara’s hands still at Bariss’s waist.

Hux’s throat tightened. He felt nothing from Ren. They had never done this together before, not in front of others.

“When was the last time we did that in private, Hux?”

Hux jumped, not expecting the intrusion into his thoughts. He scowled, not taking his eyes from Bariss and Jara, who were now murmuring quietly together.

“I see we’re still on intimate enough terms that you can casually read my thoughts while you’re blocking me.”

“Yes, I can read your thoughts. I need to know when you intend to drop this act and kill me.”

Hux’s gaze moved up the ramp, to the dark entrance of the ship. None of the other knights had yet emerged. “Never, Ren. I will never kill you. Why would you think that?”

“You were going to shoot me while I was unconscious on the floor of the throne room.”

Hux turned to him, letting everything inside himself beg for understanding. “I wasn’t! The guards, I knew they were-”

He stopped himself, his voice having risen enough that Bariss and Jara were staring at them. They were no longer holding each other, but were standing side by side. Jara was clutching Bariss’s hand tightly.

Ren’s shoulders, hunched in the familiar way he had when they argued, straightened, and he made his expression neutral as he took two steps closer to Bariss and Jara. “Jara Ren. Report. Where are the rest of the Knights?”

Jara glanced to Hux briefly, letting her hate show plainly on her face before she looked back to Ren. “Only Nufir Ren was recovered, and he died ten minutes ago on the shuttle.” She gestured with her free hand behind her, at the darkness in the interior of the ship. “There was a medical shortage, the shuttle had already been stripped of supplies. I couldn’t save him. The other Knights of Ren were killed when the _Supremacy_ ’s hull was breached. They were on board the _Supremacy_ , the _Spirit_ , and the _Golden Age_.”

“Their sacrifice for the First Order will be remembered,” Ren responded, uncharacteristically formal. Hux could only see his back now, and not his expression. “I have… The Supreme Leader is dead, and I’ve taken his place. Things will be different now.”

“They’re dead,” Jara answered flatly. “They’re finally dead. You let that monster Snoke break them, and you let him use them as he wished. They lived through years of training, only to die at the hands of _your mother’s army_. They died for a cause you don’t even believe in.”

“It was their choice,” Ren hissed defensively. Hux saw his back muscles tighten again.

“As much as it was yours,” Jara returned, glaring at Hux, then back at Ren. “I see you’re still telling yourself you won’t fall for the other monster’s manipulations again. Well. We all survived, didn’t we? We might as well celebrate by falling back on the bad habits that haven’t killed us.” Jara pulled Bariss’s hand, and led Bariss past them, making sure to jar Hux’s shoulder as she passed him. Bariss didn’t look at him.

Jara continued to address Ren, speaking loud enough to be heard by the other hangar personnel. “Korr and I are taking a day off. You might as well enjoy yourself and fuck that General of yours before the whole thing comes down around us. He certainly will enjoy having the Supreme Leader of the First Order as his own little sacrificial puppet. I’m confident the two of you can come to some sort of understanding, regarding yourselves and the billions more lives you’ll sacrifice to the General’s ego, before he decides he doesn’t need you any more. Enjoy that!”

She waved over her shoulder, not bothering to turn around. Hux took several steps toward her, furious. It was in him to punish her somehow, to call the Troopers and have her court-martialed and imprisoned for speaking to him like that, especially in public. She’d abused Ren in public too, and it was not how Hux wanted the word of Ren’s new position to spread.

Jara’s actions had been treasonous. But he’d always left Jara’s temper to Ren.

He stopped himself and glanced over his shoulder at Ren, who still stood facing the damaged transport, his back to Hux, his hands flexing at his sides. He said nothing, did nothing, as Jara and Bariss left the hangar without another word.

Hux finally addressed Ren. “Are you going to let her speak to you like that? If I’d said that, you would have thrown me into the nearest console.”

Ren finally turned to face him, furious. “I would have, yes.”

“What’s the difference? You let your Knights disrespect you in public, but not me?”

“Knight,” Ren annunciated the final t, the lack of plural. He glanced back to the door Jara had just disappeared through, and then to the shuttle she’d arrived on, his expression falling.

Hux tried to get himself back under control. Ren wasn’t thinking about his reputation, he was thinking about the other Knights. The dead Knight on that shuttle. Snoke had slowly claimed and broken the Knights over the years, but Ren had never stopped caring about any of them. Of course their deaths would be hard to take. Hux searched his empty, solitary thoughts for what Ren needed to hear.

“She wasn’t right,” Hux tried, and Ren’s gaze shifted back to him. He said nothing, but Hux pushed on, hoping this wasn’t a bad idea. “I know you… regret their deaths. And I know you’re blaming yourself. But it’s true they made their own choices, Ren. Just like she did. Just like you. Jara wants to blame you, rather than the Resistance. But she’s not right. And they died heroes.”

Ren straightened, staring at Hux, looking furious. But his eyes were sad, as sad as ever. His face was still too pale, and that scar still stood out terribly. He needed to wash his hair, it was too limp and greasy. Hux wanted to do it for him.

He remembered how freely Jara had acted, even in public. How happy she and Bariss had looked. Hux had been embarrassed, but he also _wanted that_. He wanted it back.

He swallowed, and didn’t let himself look around as he took several steps toward Ren, closing the distance between them. But when he reached for Ren’s hand, Ren recoiled, taking a step back.

Ren held up both hands in mid-motion for a moment, studying Hux, then shaking his head.

“What are you doing?”

Hux, humiliated, did his best to hide his thoughts from Ren. “You saw them. I-” He looked down for a moment, unable to hold Ren’s gaze, then swallowed his pride. “I know you wanted us to be close. I want it too.” He took a step closer, and Ren blanched. “You know that… what Jara did, in front of the hangar staff, that doesn’t come naturally to me. I’ve only ever let you see my private life. But if you want what Jara and Bariss have, I don’t care who sees us. I want it, too. To be close.”

Ren’s expression changed from discomfort to fury. “Right. You want everyone to see how _close_  you are with me. With Kylo Ren, the Supreme Leader.” He pushed Hux’s shoulder with his palm, nearly knocking him off his feet as he stepped briskly past. “Follow me. We’re going to the bridge. Don’t touch me.”

“Ren.” Hux raised his voice, then spun, jogging to catch up. He let himself speak quickly, hoped that his frustrations would help with the truth of it. “Ren, I swear it, that’s not what I meant. I _miss you_ , I hate that empty suite, I _want you back_ , I-”

“Shut up,” Ren hissed, tossing a glare over his shoulder, but not slowing his pace. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”

“You can search my thoughts-”

“No. I know you believe it.” Ren stopped in front of the main door to the hangar, pressing the button to call the internal transport system. “I don’t anymore, Hux.”

“Let me prove it.” Hux wanted to get this over with, couldn’t bear this tension with Ren. “Tell me how to make it up to you, and I will. I’ll do anything.”

Ren turned to consider him, narrowing his eyes. “You mean it. You already tried embarrassing yourself in public.”

“I’d do it again,” Hux answered quickly, too quickly, again hoping that it would prove his sincerity. “I’ll say anything you want, Ren. In front of the crew, in front of the fleet. Anything-”

“I know you will.” Ren turned away from him, facing the transport door again. “But that only means you’re as desperate as ever for my power.”

“I don’t- I don’t _care_  about-”

“Shut up,” Ren snapped again, crossing his arms, still studying the smooth steel door that would open when the transport arrived. “I don’t want to hear about what you _care_  about. I already know. I know you better than anyone else, Hux. And I already know.”

Hux ground his teeth in frustration, clenching his fists at his sides hard enough that his joints ached. But he remained silent, knowing Ren’s temper well enough to realize they wouldn’t get anywhere.

And they waited, awkwardly, for the next transport. Bariss and Jara Ren had taken the last from the hangar.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The miserable, lonely stalemate continued for three standard months. Every day, Ren waited outside their suite for Hux to begin his shift, following him around and insisting, loudly and repetitively, that Hux wouldn’t have any more private meetings.

Ren _hovered_. He was somehow _less_  independent than he had been, insisting that his hands were tied by Hux. Hux continued to suggest missions and directives to him. To satisfy Ren’s paranoia, he made the suggestions sporadically, only for things that were likely to be completed within a standard cycle, and only missions that would benefit from Ren’s skills - clandestine raids into hostile settlements, or situations that required hands-on flexible command. Things that Ren had once taken pleasure in doing.

Ren never left the ship, or Hux’s side. He always turned these suggestions into some elaborate sabotage plot, and continued to make every one of Hux’s days miserable. If possible, he was even more hostile and distracted than he had been under Snoke, though the cold of his Force no longer affected Hux. Hux tried to believe that it was because whatever Snoke had been doing to unbalance Ren’s powers had stopped. He told himself it wasn’t because Ren had severed their bond.

Most of the standard command personnel had been lost with the _Supremacy_ , and Hux found himself delegating nearly everything, from battle strategy to supply routes and rationing. He had no idea how much disinfectant a _vengeance_ -class dreadnought used, and had yet to encounter a supply officer that could find their ass with two hands. Stormtrooper recruitment slowed and stopped as his attention was directed elsewhere, as did everything else. Hux knew nothing of diplomacy, and found that their best diplomats were inefficient when left to their own devices. The Fleet’s advance into the outer rim was slow, and Hux continuously called for halts as Commanders, frustrated with the pace, took initiative and inevitably did something stupid. Luckily no additional destroyers had been lost, but they’d come very near capture three times already. They could not afford one of their _resurgent_ -class destroyers and its tech falling into Republic hands.

Ren did nothing but breathe down Hux’s neck and criticize. Between suggestions of helpful missions that Ren would enjoy, he tried to have Ren take over the Trooper training and restructuring duties. These were more pointed suggestions, usually given via a carefully prepared list of tasks he presented as the “Supreme Leader Itinerary” at the beginning of each day. Ren always grunted and read it, but he usually set it aside silently, or snidely suggested that it was only meant to be a distraction from Hux.

On his worst day, Hux suggested that even Ren finding someone else to do those tasks would be extremely _helpful_. Ren had told him that no one was more suited than Hux.

Which was true. But the program needed attention badly, and meanwhile Hux was contacting Merr-Sonn _again_  about delays for TIE replacements. As if he hadn’t had enough of that before.

He was far busier than he had been when constructing Starkiller Base, except this time he was allowed fewer assistants and private communications. When Ren left him at the door to their suite for the day, it was with a communication blackout and explicit orders not to leave until the beginning of his next shift. Usually, it was much earlier than he was accustomed to, in order to accommodate Ren’s private training schedule.

Hux wasn’t overworked, at least. But as a result, very little was getting done.

It was uncomfortably similar to the first time Hux had woken up without Ren, where he’d slowly realized how large Ren’s contributions to the Order were, and how slowly everything ran without him. Between the humiliating destruction post-Starkiller and Hux’s scattered attentions, their progress was far less than it had been before his first trip to Ventu.

Ren did nothing now, and they suffered badly for it. Ren was behind him as he gave orders on the bridge. Ren shadowed him at all his meetings, including committees and one-on-one with other commanders. Ren made sure to read all his messages. Ren also made Hux aware that he was reading his thoughts, always.

Hux was optimistic at first. If Ren was reading his thoughts, he would see that whatever paranoid fears he’d had about Hux’s betrayal were baseless. Hux would never hurt him, and was immensely pleased that Ren had killed Snoke. All of Hux’s agendas and suggestions for Ren were sincere attempts to flatter and engage Ren’s skills to their fullest. Ren could watch him all he wanted, and eventually would see that he had nothing to fear from Hux. Their lives could go back to normal, and they could both work to help the Order through their crushing defeats and into Republican space.

Ren remained stubborn, but his small concessions gave Hux hope. They ate lunch together at Ren’s insistence. Sometimes, if Hux was trying to sort out a complicated issue, they would also take dinner together. Ren complained that Hux wouldn’t eat if he was distracted, which was true. These meals were awkward and silent, and usually Hux tried to distract himself with comms while Ren stared at him sullenly from across the table, radiating misery and looking as put-upon as possible.

Hux always invited Ren into the suite for breakfast in the morning. Ren always declined, waiting outside for Hux to finish his meager meal. This was the concession that Hux wanted, the thing that he decided would show a weakening of Ren’s resolve. Ren hadn’t entered the suite again after the first time, only the attached office, and Hux hoped to establish a routine that he could work with. Some small measure of intimacy.

Ren wouldn’t have it. He declined every time, though without the suspicion that accompanied all of Hux’s other requests.

In private moments together, or when Ren yet again declined reasonable requests on the basis of Hux’s treachery, Hux tried to explain himself. He tried to apologize, again and again. He tried telling Ren how the title of Supreme Leader changed nothing (though it did - Hux was doing all the work now, and lacked support). Hux explained that he would never betray Ren.

Increasingly, Hux’s admissions grew more desperate. Ren and the Order were the only two things Hux had in his life. Why would he betray Ren? What could it possibly get him that he didn’t have right now? The only thing he wanted was Ren’s friendship.

Ren’s face always crumpled at _friendship_. But Ren stopped him if Hux tried to tell him anything else. When Hux tried more sincere confessions, they sounded like lies even to him, and fell on Ren’s uncaring ears. Ren also still threatened Hux with violence or imprisonment for his imagined crimes, though he’d not touched Hux since that first awful day on the _Supremacy_  and Crait.

Occasionally, Hux did try to touch Ren. Though Hux tried to stop himself, they still fought, usually in Hux’s office. So many of their past arguments had ended in sex that Hux grew aroused more often than not, and horribly, could sense the same from Ren. These arguments usually ended with Ren storming out when one or the other inhaled too sharply, or Ren took one step too close.

Once, when Hux’s reasonable request for Ren’s help with the Stormtrooper program yet again ended with accusations of distraction and treachery, they fought in one of the training rooms. Ren tried to physically intimidate him, backing Hux up against the sim console. As Ren leaned over him, Hux clenched his jaw against the memory of Ben Solo taking him against a similar console so many years ago.

He saw the change in Ren’s eyes as he remembered too, and his ranting cut off mid-sentence. Hux hesitated for a moment, then reached out and grabbed Ren’s bicep, squeezing it.

“You want it, too,” he hissed, still angry, still cursing Ren for being so stubborn and now wanting him as badly as he could ever remember it. “I’m not manipulating you. You want it too.”

To his surprise, Ren grabbed him and shoved him further back against the console, pushing his weight against Hux’s body and squeezing his biceps tight enough to ache. The surprise stole the breath from Hux’s lungs, and all the blood in his body retreated to his aching dick, growing hard in his uniform pants when Ren leaned in, exhaling just behind Hux’s ear.

“That’s what manipulation means, Hux. It means I want you when I shouldn’t. Or makes me believe that you want me, when all you want is self-satisfaction.”

“Ren,” he replied, and he let his desperation show again. He grabbed Ren’s waist, holding him so that he couldn’t escape, though he’d made no move to go. Hux took that as a good sign, despite his words.

“You must know that’s not true. You know how I feel about you. What you do to me. You looked into my thoughts and saw how I’d changed.”

Ren went still above him for a moment, then pulled back abruptly, his expression hurt before he schooled it into something more appropriately angry.

“I know what’s true. And I know what you want from me.”

Abruptly, he turned around and began striding to the door of the chamber. “Come on,” he barked. “Your shift’s over for today.”

Hux was now numb with shock, his skin tingling beneath his uniform in all the places Ren had touched him. He was still hard, and he touched the place behind his ear where Ren’s breath had been. But all he could think of, as he watched Ren walking away, was that Ren never changed his mind once he’d made a decision. And Ren never forgave.

“Tell me,” Hux begged, taking a step forward. He never begged. He would do it this time. He knew Ren would sense it. “I’ll say anything. I’ll do anything. I want our lives back.” He swallowed, then moved closer to Ren, begging more obviously now. “ _Please_  Ren, let me fix it. I’ve tried, for months. I don’t know how else to show you that I’m sincere. Tell me.”

Ren kept his back to him. His hand hovered above the controls to the door. “No. There’s nothing.” And with that, he went through the doors, leaving them ajar, knowing that Hux would follow him to his prison of their former suite, empty of Ren’s presence.

He knew then. All the years he’d spent telling Ren how difficult he was to _manage_ , all the taunts about Snoke, all the times he’d pushed Ren away, and how Hux had never really forgiven him for that first heartbreaking rejection from Ben Solo when he’d wanted them to run away together. It was too much. Ren was telling the truth. Hux had broken Ren’s heart too, and Ren would never forgive him. Hux knew him well enough for that.

Still, he tried, knowing that he deserved it. If he could overcome Ren’s stubbornness, this was the best possible life for the two of them, and together they could do great things now that the Order was theirs.

Hux tried for two more months, and tried to make things more personal between them. He asked Ren how they’d broken up, so that Hux could apologize for something specific. He reminded Ren that he’d lost his memory of it, that Ren had seen it was true, but Ren still didn’t really believe him. Ren would only tell him that the breakup had been his fault, and wouldn’t let Hux any closer.

He could tell the dishonesty about his memory loss hurt Ren, but he couldn’t bring himself to admit the truth: “I’ve been on some sort of heathen vision quest for years and I don’t remember breaking up with you, give me another chance.”

Ren could see it in his thoughts anyway, and chose to ignore it.

He tried seduction, even when they weren’t fighting. He began peppering his requests for Ren with compliments when they were alone. When their shift ended and Ren saw Hux back to the suite, he began more earnest admissions that he missed Ren, that he didn’t sleep well without him.

Ren only unlocked the suite and gestured Hux in, ignoring him completely. Once, Ren asked him if he ever grew tired of congratulating himself on having Ren figured out.

Hux didn’t know what to do with that. With any of it.

That was where Hux’s seduction skills ended. Compliments, which had always been enough for Ren, and the terrifyingly inevitable nature of their relationship, that _their lives were bound_ , no matter what. They still were, and they spent every day together. But having Ren without having him completely was torture, and Hux dreaded his days with Ren and the mess the First Order was turning into.

It became increasingly clear that he couldn’t fix it.

So, five months after their humiliating defeat at the hands of the Resistance, Hux made a request.

Hux had attempted a meeting of what remained of High Command. It had gone so poorly that he’d ended it before they’d reached the end of the agenda, cutting off the transmissions from the other four officers in frustration. As the frozen holos dimmed and faded, he stared down the impressive conference table still set up for the twelve-member meetings and mentally reviewed his options.

Still angry, he pushed away from the table and stood, turning to Ren and glaring.

“That’s it for today.”

“I agree,” Ren said, surprised by Hux’s tone for a moment before schooling his features into his usual sullenness. “I’ll take you back to your suite.”

“ _Our_  suite,” Hux corrected, stepping around Ren’s chair and heading toward the door, confident that Ren would follow, not caring if he didn’t. He came, of course, eyeing Hux warily in the public halls as the other officers made way for the General and the Supreme Leader of the First Order. Hux wondered how they looked. He wasn’t bothering to hide his annoyance or fury anymore, and Ren was bad at masking his emotions. Maybe the others talked about how inseparable the two of them were. More likely, they talked about their incompetence, and how the Order was stalling and failing.

Though they were in public, Hux continued to push. “I’m lonely, Ren. You understand what I mean. And I know you feel it, too. I’m getting tired of asking. What else can I do to prove my sincerity? You know I’m not…” He trailed off. “I’m not an affectionate man. Or a demonstrative one. But. Whatever it takes.”

He clenched his jaw and stared forward, waiting for Ren to speak. By now, the appeal was old. He’d asked Ren variations of this at least a dozen times. Hux could hardly stand it.

Ren shook his head. “I’m tired of telling you. There’s nothing. I know you. I know who you are. None of your empty pleas of being _lonely_  will sway me.” Ren had been keeping pace with him, looking at Hux sideways, but now strode ahead so Hux could see nothing but his back, his cape, the way his hair had grown too long and hid his high collar from behind. Hux wanted to trim it himself, run his fingers through it, lift it and kiss the back of Ren’s neck.

“I know my feelings mean something to you, or you wouldn’t act like this,” Hux snapped. He’d raised his voice so Ren could hear him, and he knew that others nearby could hear them. He simply didn’t care anymore. “So listen to me for once. I do love you. I know you’re in my head. Enjoy that, by the way. Your constant surveillance of my every flattering, longing thought must be gratifying. It’s more than I’m getting back from you.”

Ren said nothing. They were walking into a more crowded area that contained one of the hubs for the _Finalizer_  transportation network, and Hux spoke quieter now, put his hand to his eyes to try and reign in his temper. They stood next to each other while Ren called a private transport for them, and they waited for it to arrive “Look. I’m sorry for that, but. I’m frustrated. I want you. I always have. And I’m desperate. I’m out of ideas, Ren. I’m out of _hope_.”

Ren’s lips twitched. “Your thoughts are as well controlled as they always were, General. You only show me what you want me to see. I think you should get used to spending the night with your right hand. That’s the only company you’ll get anytime soon.”

Hux dropped the hand from his eyes, glaring at Ren. That was cold, though he knew Ren was trying to push him away. The place where his artificial limb had been burned suddenly with the memory of not having that arm.

The transport arrived, and Ren stepped inside. Hux followed, still trying to convince him. “It doesn’t matter that it’s you I’d fantasize about? That’s it’s always been you, Ben?”

Hux could feel his face heat, and he saw Ren’s shoulders tense. It was humiliating, but it was true. He hated that he’d said it aloud, and that it sounded desperate, even to him.

“No.”

_No_. That was it. That was all Hux would ever get from Ren. Hux was done with this, offering himself up again and again for rejection, for Ren’s taunting mistrust.

He faced forward, correcting his posture and speech to be more formal.

“Then I will be taking leave, Supreme Leader. A leave away from the _Finalizer_. You’ve observed my day to day tasks closely enough that you should be able to perform my duties adequately in my absence.” Or, as adequately as Hux did. Which was barely keeping the Order running.

Ren turned, glowering at him. “And let you out of my sight? Allow you to gather allies elsewhere and plot your little coup? No. Request denied.”

“ _Ren_ ,” he muttered, exasperated, closing his eyes and turning back to Ren, casual once again. “Then come with me. If you think I’m going to meet with the Security Bureau and plan your assassination behind your back, you’re wrong. But you say you don’t believe me. So come, I don’t care. Bariss and Peavey and the others can cover well enough.”

A small part of his thoughts whispered that he should push more on Bariss and Peavey, give more responsibility to others, to give himself deniability when everything failed. It would, unless something changed.

Then he remembered how he’d resolved to be more of a friend to Bariss, before Ren had made it clear he couldn’t talk to anyone privately.

Right. Hux closed his eyes again. This was why Ren hated him.

“I’m not going on some ‘vacation’ with you, Hux.” Ren turned away, facing the wall of the private transport.

Hux remembered the last planetside leave they’d taken together, just before they’d broken ground for Starkiller Base.

 

  
  


 

  
_“There. We made it. Planetside. On leave. Was all of that worth it?”_

_“All of that,” Ren repeated bitterly. “Why do you have to be such an asshole?”_

_“Ren. Your_ surprise _was a planetside trip to some remote ball of ice where we can’t even breathe the atmosphere. If you wanted this so badly, you should have saved us the grief and waited two more weeks for our scheduled posting on WS-19557. Just as inhospitable, but at least it’s not deadly to breathe the air.”_

_Hux knew he was being cruel, but he thought it was only fair, after the day they’d had. Ren had been insisting on this leave for months, finally calling in every favor Hux owed him (and a few imagined ones) to coerce Hux into taking time off before the start of the Starkiller project._

_Ren had been uncharacteristically eager, claiming that it would be unlike anything Hux had experienced before. He had also insisted on making the destination a surprise, and had made all the travel arrangements himself once Hux agreed to go._

_It had been a disaster. Ren’s private shuttle had still been in maintenance when they’d tried to leave. They’d had clearance issues traveling in Outer Rim space, to which Hux had needed to contact the permissions division to get an updated set of smuggling codes. Hux had nearly refused when they reached the planet, positioned far enough from its sun to be inhospitably cold to nearly every species, and its ammonia atmosphere necessitating a silly atmo suit. What was worse, it was a famous and very exclusive “resort” planet, meaning it was isolated, expensive, and lacked current comm technology. The latter had earned Ren another tirade, since Hux_ couldn’t _do work now, or be paged in case of emergency._

_“This is what I mean when I say you’re an asshole. Can’t you at least pretend you want to spend time with me?”_

_“If you want me to be kinder, you should make better choices.”_

_Ren rolled over, glaring up at Hux. They were sitting on an overly large plush red couch, Ren stretched out across the whole length with his head in Hux’s lap, relegating Hux to a small section near one arm. “I should have known better than to do something nice for you.”_

_“You should have,” Hux chided, running his fingers through Ren’s hair again. Ren grunted, rolling back over to face the large window that overlooked a deep mountain valley. Hux stroked his scalp soothingly, then began braiding his hair. Ren had taught him to do it not long after they met, but Hux rarely had the time. He loved it when Ren did the braids himself, it made him think of Ben Solo._

_“I was right though, wasn’t I? You’ve never been any place like this before.”_

_“As I said, we are about to be stationed at an identical, less deadly location just as our leave is scheduled to end.”_

_“_ Hux _.”_

_Ren’s anger had subsided once they’d reached the private cabin, which was small and cozy and excessively extravagant, sealed against the atmosphere and designed for humans and other similar-sized oxygen breathers. Ren seemed to think the cabin made everything else worth it. There was a hot tub in a private “relaxation” suite below the main floor, and a lofted upper story with an enormous bed somehow suspended in warm water that Ren had already made several sexual allusions to._

_“Yes, fine,” Hux admitted, exasperated. “I’ve never been anywhere like this.”_

_“Do you like it? What’s your favorite part?”_

_It was a simple question, asked offhandedly, but Hux could tell it meant a great deal to Ren. If Hux were being honest, he would admit it was the the enormous transparisteel wall that reached from the peak of the pitched cabin roof all the way to the bottom of the foundations. It offered a view of the mountainous and snow-covered valley, when there was enough sunlight to see it. Which was, if Hux understood, only three hours a day in the current season._

_They were watching the sun rise now, the edge of it not yet visible over the mountain peaks. The hint of it cast the vast snow-covered rocky landscape in purple and rose shadows. Few other cabins were visible in the mountains around them, either cleverly hidden by design or nonexistent - Hux did not want to know how exclusive their accommodations were. Near their window, there was a patch of bushes with large red berries, a flock of tiny red and black birds flitting among the branches. Hux wished he could hear their calls through the transparisteel. On the next mountain over, there was a small village with an enormous evergreen tree standing up among the tiny cottages. From this distance, Hux could see small pink lights twinkling in the branches and flashes of some metallic decoration woven in among them._

_But Ren could sense all that, so instead he replied “Being warm and out of that atmo suit.”_

_Ren rolled over again, ruining the braid that Hux was plaiting. Hux frowned down at him._

_“You’ll have to put the atmo suit on again to take the tours, or ride the Benna-Pur, or do the sports.”_

_“_ Sports _,” Hux spat, looking away from Ren’s face and out into the snow again. “If you think I’m putting on that atmo suit_ and _ridiculous snow gear to slide around in ice, you’re mistaken.”_

_“I know you want to use the hot tub,” Ren pushed, stubborn as ever. “It’ll be even better if you exercise first. Using it when you’re tired and sore is the best.”_

_“And you know my fondness for sub-sentients. What makes you think I’d want to ride those Benna-Pur?” They were some sort of equestrian creature, larger than most Hux had seen. Their feet were large enough to keep the big beasts on top of the snow and allowed them to trot effortlessly across its surface and up the slopes of the mountains. They were ridden with two or three beings on their back, as Ren had showed him eagerly in photos when they’d arrived in the transportation center._

_Ren grunted, turning back over, more annoyance threading through his thoughts now. “I forgot. You don’t like to do anything. Ever. Or have fun.”_

_“You’ve known me long enough to be well aware,” Hux returned. He would have to do at least one or two of the specialty activities on this planet. But neither of them would enjoy it. And ultimately, yes, he would be just fine with spending the whole trip with Ren’s head in his lap on the couch, making his plans for Starkiller and imagining his success._

_“We’ve been talking about nothing_ but _Starkiller, Hux. And that’s the only thing we’ll be doing for the next two years. That’s what leave is for. So we can do_ something else _.”_

_“You chose an ammonia planet. I can’t help it that I don’t want to wear a suit to go outside so I don’t die.”_

_“You didn’t even wear the shore leave outfit,” Ren muttered, still hurt by this slight._

_“I might as well have been naked, for all those outfits leave to the imagination. I’ll have to put in a request to alter them when I get back.”_

_The First Order had begun issuing updated shore leave gear that consisted of flowing floor-length navy blue tunics, a wide white belt, tight-fitting trousers, and boots that barely came above the ankle. Hux had worn his for the first time when they’d begun the trip on the_ Finalizer _, but it had been so tight that he’d felt indecent. The slim fit hid nothing about his slight build. Ren had tried to assure him that he looked fine, but Hux had grown increasingly annoyed when Ren couldn’t seem to keep his enormous hands off his waist and shoulders. Hux had appreciated the tight fit of Ren’s tunic, which displayed the expanse of his chest, shoulders, and ass to great effect. But even that had made Hux feel as if everyone was staring at them both and seeing that Hux was inferior, so they’d both changed. Hux wore his uniform without the tunic, and had destroyed one of his greatcoats by picking off the rank insignia. He had departed the_ Finalizer _bareheaded, exposed, and feeling foolish. Ren’s own tunic hadn’t been cared for, and was…_ ripe _. Hux had made sure to tell Ren on the way here._

_“I liked the shore leave outfit,” Ren muttered sourly._

_“Then if you’re very good, and we don’t do winter sports, I’ll wear it for you one night.”_

_Ren squeezed one of Hux’s knees with one hand. “Fine. I’ll do the sports by myself. But you have to ride one of the Benna-Pur with me while we’re here. I made sure we came during their rejuvenation festival.”_

_Hux rolled his eyes. Ren’s fascination with far-flung cultures and their religions was one of the more harmless of his hobbies. But Hux disliked this kind of trap, where he was forced to_ share _._

_“I’m afraid riding one of those creatures will soil my shore leave uniform, Ren. Or at the very least, ruin my atmo suit.”_

_Ren was angry for a moment, but it passed quickly in a fit of resignation and sadness. His hand slipped from Hux’s knee, and he sighed._

_Hux braced himself for a longer argument about their planetside activities, but instead, they sat in silence and watched the sun rise over the mountains._

_It really was beautiful._

 

 

 

 

  
They’d spent the two weeks of leave barely speaking to each other. Every day, Ren had tried to get Hux to leave the cabin, and Hux had declined, blaming Ren for taking him to such a cold, inhospitable place. As Hux recalled, they hadn’t even used the spa level more than once. He couldn’t remember if they’d even had sex on the bed. If they had, it had been begrudging on both their parts.

It was an unfortunate memory, and one that Hux had tried to avoid almost as soon as they’d finished the leave. Ren stared at the wall of the transport. His thoughts were still tightly guarded against Hux, but Hux could see that he was unhappy, and was probably dwelling on the same trip.

“I behaved badly on our last leave. I can’t change that now, but… I’m sorry. I want to be better, I want…” What he wanted didn’t matter. “Not that. But I wasn’t thinking of going on a leave with you. I wanted to go someplace myself. To a planet in Wild Space. I once heard… a story. That their religion was similar to yours, that it might somehow be tied into the Force. That it could somehow influence the lives of individuals. I want to see it, but since you-” Hux tried to think of a more pleasant phrasing and couldn’t, “Since you don’t trust me, you can come too. There’s nothing terribly interesting about it. There’s a jungle that reeks of flowers. I’m told.”

Ren snorted. “Since when do you care enough about the Force to drop everything and chase a rumor? You never even asked me about my training with the Supreme Leader.”

“I used to ask you all the time!” Hux protested, turning toward him. “You’re the one that said-”

“Whatever. You’re probably looking for weaknesses…” Ren trailed off, his expression hurt, and he turned more fully toward Hux. “You’ve been to this planet! Since when have you been planetside without me?”

“Ren.” Hux was exasperated. He put his hand to his face again, leaning against the back of the transport. “I’m tired of this. Read my thoughts. All of it was there when you saw it before, those differences in my memory. You can see I’ve been there with you. More than once. If you think I’m… sick, somehow, for having the memories that don’t exist, you can at least see that I believe them.” He looked back over at Ren, glaring at him. This time, Ren shrank, somewhat uncertain. “Since you are reading my thoughts, you can also see that I believe the cure to my illness, that whatever is wrong with my memory can be fixed there. So I will go. You may come with me. You will not stop me. It is no more or less complicated than that.”

To Hux’s surprise, Ren’s expression softened, and he looked lost. It was a reaction that Hux had been trying to inspire regularly for weeks. Months. Some emotion, some _hint_  that they could be together again.

Hux opened his mouth and nearly told him all of it. But he didn’t, aware that Ren could have it all anyway, while Hux could have nothing in return except Ren’s paranoid suspicions. Words simply weren’t enough for Ren any longer.

When the transport chimed to indicate that it had reached the Command Suite, Hux pushed past Ren, not looking at him.

“Beginning of alpha shift,” he stated, feeling a weight lift off his shoulders again. “I will be leaving. You will meet me in the Besk forward hangar, and we will take your shuttle. Or I will take it without you. I care little, at this point.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
Hux didn’t sleep that night, as he so often did not. Memories looped themselves through his thoughts while he tried to decide what he would do with yet another visit to Ventu. He didn’t know what he’d done wrong this time, or how he’d failed. The only thing he was certain of was that he needed a protocol droid. So he violated the Supreme Leader’s orders by deactivating his off-shift comm blackout and arranging for one to be sent to the Supreme Leader’s private shuttle. He half-expected Ren to appear immediately in the bedroom, but the minutes passed, and he received no hint that Ren had even noticed.

Hours later, he left the suite tired and in a foul mood. To his surprise, he’d received no reprimand from Ren about the off-shift comm violation, nor was Ren waiting outside the door. He stood in the empty corridor for a moment, debating whether to wait on Ren or send a comm, then left without doing either.

Perhaps Ren had sensed that Hux had given up and wasn’t planning on returning. Maybe Ren had grown tired of his performative paranoia, and was relieved to be rid of Hux. Maybe Ren didn’t want to cause a scene. Part of Hux wanted to find Ren and cause a scene himself. Fourteen years together, and Ren was letting Hux walk out of his life and desert the First Order after all but keeping him prisoner for the last six months.

But Hux was tired. And the faster he went to Ventu, the faster he could find a version of Ren who would allow Hux to fall into his arms and get a decent night’s sleep.

His breath hitched slightly in surprise when he rounded the side of the shuttle and found Ren waiting, leaning against the landing gear near the ramp. Because of course Ren would never avoid _causing a scene_ , nor did he give up on his grudges. Ren loved doing things the hard way.

Hux nodded in awkward acknowledgment, trying to calm his roiling thoughts. “You did decide to come.”

Ren scowled. “I don’t trust you. I need to go.”

Ren’s thoughts were still guarded, and his anger effectively erased the traces of whatever else he was thinking from his face and body language. Was Ren only coming in order to catch Hux doing something treacherous, to finally justify killing him?

It would be easier for both of them if Hux acted like he _was_  plotting to kill Ren. Hux knew Ren was capable of carrying a grudge for decades, and might waste time looking for him if Hux disappeared once he entered the cave on Ventu. He hated the thought of Ren scouring the galaxy for the rest of his life on some insane, fruitless grudge. And the prospect of searching for Ren again himself, after everything had been so close this time, was difficult to face.

But Hux had always been bad at giving up. So he pushed past Ren and into the shuttle, making straight for the cockpit and buckling himself in. He booted up the autopilot and programmed the familiar coordinates into the system, then glared at Ren as he settled into the copilot’s seat.

Ren only glared back, pushing his long hair out of his face. “You’re comfortable up here. When have you ever piloted a ship?”

Hux paused, his hands freezing over the controls as he entered the autopiloting sequence. Ren always piloted his own craft if he could. Hux had never bothered to learn, and only knew so much about autopilot and navigation because-

Because of Ventu.

And Ren, of course, was reading all those thoughts. So Hux only stared at him, then finished the takeoff sequence.

There was more uncomfortable silence as Hux watched the shuttle slowly move out of the hangar and into space, the stars outside the _Finalizer_  eventually blurring into familiar streaks as the engines hummed and the hyperdrive engaged. Once the ship stabilized and there was nothing left to see out the front viewport, Hux considered what to do next.

He could pretend he was tired and retire to one of the auxiliary berths until they reached Ventu. He could answer messages and organize a takeover of Terfin, a former New Republic stronghold that was proving difficult to negotiate with.

He could stay here in the cockpit and feel miserable, which was what he’d planned on doing before he’d realized Ren was coming with him. He glared at Ren again, who at least had the grace to look properly chastised.

“How long until we get to… where we’re going?” Ren asked, turning and looking out a side port, where only the smeared view of hyperspace travel was visible.

“Three hours from here. Not far.” The _Finalizer_  was currently in Wild Space, and Ventu was in the sector that Hux’s fleet was actively patrolling. Traveling to Ventu wasn’t the one- or two-day ordeal that it usually was, at least.

Ren looked like he wanted to say something. Hux stared until Ren stopped fidgeting, Ren’s gaze eventually moving from the side port and falling into his lap. Hux couldn’t read Ren’s thoughts, had no idea what Ren was making of all this. He could ask, but that hadn’t helped before, and as far as Hux was concerned, Ren had already established the tone of his participation by accusing Hux of treason. Again.

Hux decided on a compromise, staying belted into the pilot’s seat while he tried to distract himself with the military operations on Terfin. At least it wouldn’t give Ren the satisfaction of… whatever it was he thought he was doing here. Interrupting Hux’s plotting.

Ren said nothing, and didn’t even remove his own datapad to eavesdrop of Hux’s comms. Instead, he stared morosely ahead, into whatever it was that Ren saw in the hyperspace traces.

The journey to Ventu went smoothly, and Hux successfully finished the local autopilot sequence once they were back in realspace. Ren had been obviously uncomfortable about something the entire time, though Hux decided not to indulge his mood. He thought Ren might offer to land the craft. He’d shifted and moved his hands to the controls and opened his mouth, but then ultimately sat hunched over his set of controls until they landed, sulking.

The little village of Ak’dar was experiencing some sort of torrential downpour when they arrived. He’d never seen a single cloud over this area of Ventu, but he supposed he should expect it given the humid, slimy terrain.

He hadn’t thought to bring waterproofing for his uniform, and he was soaked to the skin almost as soon as he reached the bottom of the shuttle ramp. The droid was waterproof, and Ren’s outfit seemed to repel rain by design. Remarkable, considering how foul Ren’s clothes normally were. Ren’s hair was soaked though, and the water ran over the scar, still angrily bisecting his unhappy face.

Hux sighed, giving up and returning to the shuttle to toss his greatcoat and command cap into a sopping heap on the floo. At least he wouldn’t need to carry around the extra weight of the sodden gaberwool. He pushed his wet hair out of his face, scowled, and threw his gloves in after them, sealing the door and continuing along the path toward the village. His boots were waterproof, but sank several inches into the foul mud of the jungle, the red dust congealed into puddles that splashed mud up onto his black pants and all the way up to the hem of his tunic.

The rain was sulfurous and smelled rotten, because of course it did.

The droid struggled through the muck, and Hux waited patiently for it near the end of the path, resigned to endure anything that happened here. Ren cursed as he wallowed through the mud in front of it. He still wore the ridiculous cape he’d been favoring as Supreme Leader, but had opted to wear his old cowl as well, and had that pulled up to protect his face from the reeking rain.

He’d not re-manufactured his helmet since losing the old one on Starkiller, and Hux thought of it briefly now, how it would have saved Ren’s hair from getting soaked. He also remembered Ren wearing it their first trip to Ventu. It had filtered out the pollen in the air. Hux studied his face for a moment, then looked forward, stung suddenly by the memory of giving Ren the helmet the first time.

_"You’re nervous.”_

_“Of course I am.”_

_”Well?”_

_“Well what? You being unsure about something is the real gift.”_

_“Ben.”_

Hux blinked it away, along with the tight feeling in his throat. That memory was so far away, so estranged from his current life, it might as well not exist. He didn’t turn back to see if Ren had caught him thinking of it. He didn’t want to share fond memories just now. Not that Ren seemed at all inclined to it.

The jungle looked much as it always did through the sheets of rain. The purple haze no longer hung in the air, and the cloying floral scent was overpowered by the stink of the rain. But the red dirt path still stood out vividly in contrast to the enormous dark tree trunks. Further up the trunks, the giant orange-red blossoms were in full bloom, but most were hidden by low-hanging cloud cover that also obscured the green canopy of leaves. Visibility was reduced, so the scale of the forest was not as apparent, and the beginnings of the village couldn’t be seen from the clearing they’d landed in.

Hux led the slow, waterlogged procession all the way to the outskirts of the village, where the small red-skinned Varra priest greeted them in the doorway of their largest hut, once again as if Hux had been expected. Using the protocol droid, Hux introduced himself and Ren by name rather than title, and the priest invited them inside.

Hux had never been inside their dwellings before, and he saw a ring of a dozen bald, naked aliens arrayed on log benches around the edges of the circular chamber. There was a fire burning green in a pit in the center of the room, with a pot bubbling above it. It smelled better than the sulfur rain, and Hux’s stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten before he left. He didn’t want to do it now. He wanted to hurry and ask his questions, and _fix his life_.

He began speaking while the priest still stared into the fire, the three of them standing awkwardly behind, waiting for an invitation to sit. “I came to learn of The Way,” Hux offered smoothly, more sure of how to begin his inquiries this time. “This is not my first journey to your village. I’ve experienced your Ways many times. I’d like to see if you can explain it to me again.”

Ren stared at him. Hux didn’t care what he thought about any of this. Perhaps Ren would still somehow spin it into an assassination attempt. As if Hux was colluding with these bald big-eared aliens to learn their special powers and take out Ren.

He glared at Ren, wondering if he’d misinterpret the musing. Ren looked surprised, nearly shocked. Hux shoved thoughts of him away, turning back to the priest, who addressed the protocol droid in their odd barking language.

“You have traveled the Way? You are familiar with it?”

“Yes. The last time I traveled the Way, you indicated that I’d traveled it more often than any member of your… religion. May I sit for this?” he asked, when the alien still seemed overly interested in the fire. Hux’s soaked uniform was growing unbearably warm. Sighing, he stripped out of his tunic and gloves, leaving the symbols of his rank near the fire. He grabbed his suspenders and considered stripping down to his undershirt and boxers, then thought of Ren. He wouldn’t. Ren would get nothing more than his bare arms. The product in his hair had loosened, and sticky locks hung in his eyes. He pushed them back, grimacing when his bare hand came away slick.

The priest went to a vacant section of log that was the right height for its small legs. The rest of the log was already occupied by other Varra, all of whom stared at the protocol droid. Resolved not to tower over them, Hux sat in the dirt, sparing only a brief thought for the red mud that would stick to the back of his pants. After a moment, Ren sat behind him.

Hux sighed, putting a palm up to the protocol droid to indicate silence, then turned his head, the shape of Ren visible from the corner of his eye.

“The Supreme Leader of the First Order and conquerer of the galaxy, sitting in the mud at the feet of naked aliens.”

Ren paused for a moment, which gave away the fact he hadn’t remembered his new status as Supreme Leader, and was about to lie. Ren inhaled, then paused for a moment longer to answer. He sounded tired when he did.

“You’re the one that didn’t give them our titles. I’m not the Supreme Leader to them.”

Hux wasn’t turned far enough to see the expression on his face. He faced forward again. “You’re not. And you’d kneel in all the mud in the universe if it taught you more about the Force.”

Ren’s voice grew tighter. “Just because-”

“I only meant-” Hux waved his hand, frustrated. “I didn’t mean to say it like that. Just that you’re an eager student. As we both know.”

There wasn’t any way to elaborate on that without referencing Snoke and starting a fight, and Hux had only meant it as an impulsive observation. It was true, and it was almost funny. But of course Ren had taken it badly.

He gestured to the protocol droid again. It stood between Hux and the priest, attentive and ready to perform its duties.

Hux continued. “We’ve met before, and you’ve already given me lessons. I’ve traveled your way… five times now.”

The priest shifted. “Five times?”

“Yes. You informed me that was… irregular. That most only travel the Way two or three times.” Hux frowned. He hated repeating himself, and he was concerned about getting the same too-general lecture. “You also told me that most who study… your Way, they stay in your village to relive their life. But I’m not from here. I’ve been many places on my Way, and I always return here at the end. But I don’t understand _why_. Why is your Way punishing me?” Hux was letting his frustrations show in his voice, which he shouldn’t. He looked around the crowded hut, and all the eyes staring intently at the protocol droid, translating in their barking language.

He’d lost any pride he had long ago. He’d kneel in the mud to learn, the same as Ren. He wanted his life back.

When the droid finished, none of the aliens seemed to react, though a few shifted their gazes to Hux. If the priest found Hux’s story remarkable this time, there was no sign.

“It is not a punishment. It is just a Way. Always, a Way.”

“Yes,” Hux said, more impatient now. “You said that before. We’ve had this conversation. But I don’t understand why, or what, is causing me to do this over and over again, and what makes the changes.”

“It is what you need. It is…”

The priest went on, and the droid used words like _life_  and _fate_  and _changes_  and _decisions_  and how all of it tied Hux to the village, and to the aliens, and to the fabric of existence. Hux was tied to those around him, and what he did mattered.

Which, of course he was influential. He was the general of an army, and had always run his training program. He didn’t need to keep coming to a backwater in Wild Space to be told this. He pushed his sticky hair back out of his face, frustrated by this. He glanced at Ren, who appeared to be listening raptly.

When the priest stopped speaking and the droid finished its translation, Hux waited a moment, unsure how to respond.

“I’ve done this… more often than your histories speak of. According to you, I should be some sort of Master of your Ways, after doing it five times off-planet.”

The priest blinked slowly, then again. This seemed to have significance, as all the other aliens in the room turned to look. The droid said nothing. Hux cursed internally.

“You would have much to teach us. Five Ways. All off-planet.”

“I can’t,” Hux said abruptly. “I’d have to… you wouldn’t understand.” He shifted, hating that they were divided by language, culture, religion. He was losing hope of ever making them understand.

“I live my life on a galactic scale.” He gestured to the roof of the hut, meaning the sky, which was now obscured by the roof and the clouds and daylight. He felt even more foolish. He wondered if the protocol droid had translated the gesture. “When the Way changes for me, the changes are… significant. Difficult for me to learn.” He avoided looking at Ren. “I want to go back to the Way before the Ways. My life. My original life.”

“Then go,” the priest said simply.

Hux stared at him a moment, wondering if there would be elaboration. There was not.

Hux finally lost his temper. He stood, clenching his fists at his sides, hating the thought of how he must look, towering over the small priest, red-faced, shouting. He couldn’t stop himself. “I can’t, I’ve tried! I’ve gone through the cave without… knowing what would happen, and I did it again looking for answers. And the last time, I begged for it, I’ve begged for my old life. It hasn’t worked!”

“What about it is different now?”

Hux paused for only a moment, because the difference was simple.

“My partner doesn’t love me.” It sounded petty and ridiculous aloud, but Hux said it quickly, because otherwise he would deny it, or lie about it, and it was important. He wanted it. He didn’t look at Ren. Ren already knew.

The protocol droid translated, and the priest spoke. “Ah. The Way is different if there are two lives. It is one life as two.”

That didn’t make sense to Hux, but he tried to coax more of an explanation from the priest. “Two lives, but. He wasn’t doing it with me. It was just mine, over and over again.”

“But was your life not still bound to your partner?”

Hux paused. It was. “Not the same way. We never… met each other. We were never equal to each other. If I go back, I can fix it.”

The priest studied him. “Then do it. If your desire is sincere, The Way will lead you there.”

“I don’t know how to be any more… sincere than I already was.”

Ren shifted behind him. Hux half-expected an accusation, or some sarcastic comment. Ren remained silent.

“Your partner must be sincere. They must understand you, that you speak truth. You must be bound completely. It is the only thing that matters.”

Hux was beginning to despair. How long would it take to find a version of Ren that believed him? “I see,” Hux said tightly.

“Your Way is not complete. You need your partner.”

“I have him.” Hux turned to one of the open doorways of the hut, then remembered the red mud that would cover the back of his pants, that Ren had probably been staring at it ever since he stood to shout. He ran his hand through his hair again, blinking, then wiped his palm on his pants.

This wasn’t going anywhere. He’d learned nothing new, except he was wasting his time here. He’d never understand, and the priest would never understand him. The rain pounded against the roof, filling the hut with cacophonous pounding. He thought of the headaches he had before he’d found Ren in the other lives. It only reminded him that Ren was here, in his mind, and closing himself off to Hux.

He would solve the problem himself. He looked around the chamber, at the still faces of the Varra. He wondered if he should be more kindly disposed to them. At least Snoke hadn’t commed to give orders to eradicate the planet this time. Hux was relieved he’d never had to do that. Then he wondered if he had, that first time, if there was some version of himself that had made it out of that cave with whatever artifacts that Snoke and Hux wanted, then blown the village apart from orbit and returned back to his familiar, comfortable life.

Of the entire fruitless exchange with that priest, the only part that made sense was that it might be different if he brought Ren with him. He hadn’t had Ren since that first time.

He could beg. Ren could sense how important this was to him. But that wouldn’t move Ren, if he’d decided against it. If Ren didn’t want to go out in the rain.

He strode over to the door of the hut, peering out into the storm. “Ren. Indulge me.”

“It’s raining.”

Annoyed, Hux turned back around, but his retort quickly died when his gaze landed on Ren.

He was still sitting on the mud floor of the hut, leaning back on his palms, legs stretched in front of him, taking up as much space as possible. He’d removed his cape and cowl, they were laying in a puddle next to him. But though he looked lazy and comfortable, his expression was miserable. He was as soaked as Hux, his too-long hair hanging straight and close to his head, the ends still dripping water. His brows were drawn, and he was looking at Hux with his sad brown eyes, less considered and suspicious and more openly unhappy.

If he thought anything of what Hux had told that priest, it wasn’t obvious, and Ren still wasn’t sharing his thoughts. Hux had no idea what part of the lesson had upset him.

Frustrated, he crossed the hut, bent down, and grabbed Ren’s gloved hand from the dirt, not caring what it looked like to the Varra. He yanked Ren forward until he stood, making less of a show than he usually would of it - Ren couldn’t be moved by Hux if he didn’t want to be, and they both knew it.

Hux pulled him out into the rain, which felt colder now after the heat of the fire. Hux held Ren’s hand until they were away from the hut, then dropped it, the water making him feel disgusted and diminished.

Rather than follow, Ren stopped, sinking into the mire of the path. Hux turned to face him, furious now.

“You’re already wet! What difference could it possibly make to humor me for five more minutes? Follow me into this cave to make sure it’s not a fucking execution plot, and after that we’ll go.”

Ren didn’t move, only stood silent and miserable in the rain. Hux grabbed his hand again, yanking him into the jungle and down the path to the cave. Ren’s glove was saturated and disgusting in Hux’s damp palm.

It really was quite wet. Hux’s feet were still dry, but wouldn’t be for much longer with the rain soaking his pants and running into the tops of his boots. He thought of the drills they’d done in the rain when he was a child, how wet and sore his feed had been. His hair had fallen in his face again, the water streaming through it. He pushed it back, and forgot Arkanis again.

When they reached the low depression that marked the entrance to the cave, Hux dropped Ren’s hand and all but sprinted down the steps, heedless of the cascade of water trailing into the depths, of the slime, of the overpowering floral smell that was still in the air.

He’d left Ren, but he couldn’t wait, couldn’t bear to have a conversation with him about _why_ , couldn’t bear begging the last of his favors from Ren. Maybe it would count if Ren was at the entrance. Maybe Ren would follow out of curiosity.

His elation didn’t last long. This time, he reached the bottom in less than a minute. The shock of it brought him up short.

The floor of the cave merely leveled out, and a slight widening of the walls created a tiny chamber in the rock. The water rushing down the stairs ran through a hole in the center. The same biolumenescent sconces that lined the stairway threw a dim yellow light over the red rock and mud.

There was nothing. No artifacts, no altar, no art. There was… nothing. It was just a cave.

Hux stood, waiting for the darkness to overtake him, waiting to wake up in bed with Ren, his Ren. He hadn’t said anything this time, because he’d been too angry with Ren, too overcome by being here again. Maybe that was the difference. He looked back up the stairway. Incredibly, the entrance was visible from the bottom. Ren was already most of the way down, still looking soaked and miserable.

Hux turned back to the small room. “Ren’s here,” he said aloud. “He doesn’t trust me. Doesn’t love me. I can’t. I can’t do the rest of it if that’s not true, and I can’t change it. I tried. But I know him too well. It won’t change.”

Ren was at his back now, at the bottom of the stairs. The water rushing down the stairs and into the hole in the floor was loud, and rain dripped from Hux’s eyelashes still. The hair on his bare arms stood up, though the air in the chamber was warm.

Nothing happened. There was only the floral smell, and the water, and the slick walls and faint light. He stood for a long time, staring at one of the blank walls.

He heard Ren shift behind him.

And suddenly, he laughed. Bent over double and kept laughing until his stomach hurt. Once he started, he couldn’t stop.

“Hux.” Ren took a step closer, boots squelching in the mud. When Hux didn’t respond, Ren grabbed him and spun him around, shouting into his face.

“Hux!”

Hux clenched his jaw, couldn’t help it. He felt like he was going to keep laughing until he couldn’t any more, until he suffocated and died, because if it didn’t work this time, what was the point? What was the point in any of it?

Ren’s face was… not derisive. Not angry. Concerned. Still miserable. Both hands gripped Hux’s shoulders. Hux’s shoulders were wet, and so were Ren’s gloves. He was growing cold, and beginning to shiver.

“I tried, Ren. I tried to meet you in the middle. I told myself I wouldn’t do this again. Every time I did it was going to be the last, and I believed I could handle whatever was waiting for me when I woke up. But it was always you. And you’re… you, every time. I know that. There aren’t really different versions of you, and there’s no changing you. You’re better than me, or you won’t give me the time of day, or you want to lock me up. If you make up your mind to do something, nothing can change it. If you decide to live in a prison with me, or keep me away from the First Order, or hate me, there’s nothing I can do about it. I always think I can change you. _Seduce_  you. But I can’t. I should have known, because I-” He brought a hand up to cover his face, let himself slump forward slightly.

“You’re only ever you, and I’m me, and it’s never good enough. We can’t ever be _good_  together.”

It was defeat, humiliating and bitter. There wasn’t anything Hux could do. No plans, no confidence. Nothing.

He pushed past Ren, tired of discussing his feelings. The cave wouldn’t work, and he couldn’t redo it, couldn’t wish for everything to go back how it was.

So close. This time was so close. And now he’d be forced to live with Ren, who didn’t give him a moment’s peace because he couldn’t _trust_  Hux. Ren, who was the only person Hux had ever trusted unconditionally in his life.

Ren was…

The rest of it hurt, too. Ren’s friendship. His love. Their life together. Every single detail that Hux had played through his head as he’d been forced to consider his actions. The last time had been so close, but that was… It wasn’t his life.

And so here he was. He was being punished, by giving him a life that was _so close_  to what he needed. Presented to him, exactly as he would have asked. Except for Ren’s trust.

Ren.

Hux ran back up the stairs of the cave, loosing his footing and sliding back down, scraping his palms and banging his knees and slamming his mouth hard enough to rattle his teeth. He merely stood back up and continued, sore enough to limp when he reached the top.

He didn’t see if Ren was following. He limped blindly through the rain, through the dusk that was falling over the jungle, through the village, past a pair of staring aliens and to the ramp of the ship ( _the Supreme Leader’s shuttle_ ).

He stopped in the middle of the ramp, staring at the still-closed hatch. He was out of breath and soaked, nearly blinded in the driving rain.

What was he to do now?

It took an act of extreme will to enter the codes that opened the hatch. Numbly, he stumbled over his previously discarded pile of wet clothes. His palms stung from where he’d scraped them in the cave. He could fix that. He found the emergency med kit in the main storage area and removed a pair of bacta patches. Bacta had been in such short supply until recently. It felt like a waste to use it on his palms. So many things felt like a waste to him. Slowly, he put them back and latched the kit.

He looked around the empty shuttle. When they’d come to Ventu the first time, they’d had a small unit of Stormtroopers for protection, a pilot, a pair of officers. Hux hadn’t brought them this time. He’d done the trip alone so many times since, it hadn’t occurred to him to bring guards. He should have. He should have known Ren would come with him. That he’d be humiliated and defeated like this.

“Hux.”

He jumped, whipping around in a single motion. Ren was framed in the shuttle hatch, a growing puddle of water spreading on the floor around him. He looked angry, out of breath, and muddy. Ren must have fallen, too. His black tunic and pants were covered in the red mud, it was spattered over his face and through his long hair. The rain hadn’t washed it away. Hux realized he must also look a complete mess. He glanced down at his pants, scraped and soaked and covered in red mud. His hair was hanging in his face again, and he pushed it back, managing to mask his feelings with his usual indifferent expression.

“What? Care for another casual pass at my thoughts, Ren? Why not?”

“You.” Ren shook his head. Opened his mouth, and closed it. Rain dripped from his chin, from the tips of his hair. He took several steps into the dim interior of the shuttle. Rain poured in the hatch, and there were muddy footprints and water all over the floor.

“You didn’t ask me,” Ren finally said, tone accusing.

Hux’s face reddened. “Ask you?”

“You studied their religion and came here because you thought it would help you.” Ren’s eyes dropped. “With me. But you didn’t understand what they told you. I know you didn’t. And then you didn’t ask me.”

“ _Ask_  you?” Hux repeated again, more incredulously this time. “You heard everything I told them. I’ve been asking you what I can do to…” He thought back to their phrasing, “make you understand that I’m telling the truth. You never answer me. You forbid me from leaving my suite and cut off my comms at night. You constantly accuse me of plotting against you. You might as well court-martial me and get it over with.”

“I end your shift and turn off your comms because you’ll keep working unless you’re ordered to stop. By me. The Supreme Leader.”

“ _Supreme Leader_ ,” Hux sneered. “I need to work! We’re catastrophically behind, mere weeks from an internal collapse-”

“It’s not that bad,” Ren snapped. He put his fingers through his hair, looking down at the ground. “It’s never as bad as you think it is. I get reports from other people, Hux. I’m the Supreme Leader.”

Hux’s mouth snapped shut, and he narrowed his eyes. Hux didn’t trust Ren’s other sources. Ren looked up and met his gaze, then continued.

“I know you don’t trust the others. I can tell who to trust, Hux. Loyalty tests were my specialty.”

Hux’s pulse began slamming. “ _Loyalty tests_. Spare me. You don’t trust me-”

“It’s not that!” Ren pulled his hair, then stomped over to the hangar door, slamming his palm into the bulkhead next to the controls. Hux winced. If Ren broke something important, he’d have to repair it himself. They had no resources here.

“Fuck you, Hux. I shouldn’t trust you. You don’t even know when you’re lying to yourself. You believe your own propaganda. And you’re always so sure you’re doing the right thing, even when- Even when you’re doing something shitty, Hux, you usually don’t realize it.”

Hux could still feel the blood in his face. This was… confusing. It was also a turning point. He was having difficulty grasping what Ren was trying to say.

“I don’t believe my own propaganda!”

“You do,” Ren held Hux’s gaze, a defiant look on his face. “You were always the best lesson when I learned to open myself up to other’s thoughts. Yours were a trap. I’ve never seen another mind that could lie to itself as effortlessly as yours.”

“See?” Hux said bitterly, crossing his arms and taking a seat on a low bench. His pants squelched unpleasantly below him. “You don’t trust me.”

“Hux. For once in your life, _shut up for a second_.” Ren pushed his hair out of his face, then stalked over, leaning above where Hux sat, one hand on the bulkhead. Trying to intimidate him. Really, as soaked as he was, he was just dripping, and it was as ineffective as it ever was.

“ _You_  threw _me_  out, Hux. It’s been two years. I missed you, I was- Snoke was getting worse, and you were falling apart as badly as I was. And you threw me out. Said I was a distraction you didn’t need any more. You believed it! And that was the thing that hurt the worst. It was like you’d forgotten everything else. And once you forgot it, it would never come back, because then you would be _wrong_.” Ren paused, then swallowed. His eyes bored into Hux. “I’ve had a shitty life, Hux. But that was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Because you were the one thing that I chose. Finding you again was one of the only decisions I ever made by myself. And you didn’t want me anymore.”

Hux’s throat tightened. He wanted to deny this. He couldn’t. He let Ren speak instead.

“I should have been relieved. You were the only thing that was still tying me to the First Order, and everything had turned into a nightmare once we started Starkiller. I wanted to leave, but I didn’t know what else I could do. It isn’t like I have any fucking… skills, or whatever. But if I left, I would have at least been free. Snoke would have never found me. You wouldn’t have, either.”

That, at least, was emphatically untrue. “Try me. I can find you anywhere.”

Ren blinked at him. He was still guarding his emotions, and Hux still wasn’t sure where this was going. It was awful to hear aloud. Ren’s assessment of him felt like a knife through the ribs, and he couldn’t get the breath or the thought to deny any of it.

Still, this sounded more like a big, dramatic lead-up to Ren lifting his restrictions and admitting Hux wasn’t going to kill him. Or, perhaps Ren was going to kill Hux. Ren’s emotions always grew less stable when he was worked up, and he was visibly upset now.

At that thought, Ren’s mouth turned down, but his eyes stayed fever-bright. “Fine, you would have found me. But, Hux. You think you’re being punished, that I’m using you as slave labor. What would you do, if I lifted all the restrictions I ordered?”

“I’d clean everything up. I’d be able to arrange a staff that could handle more, set more to rights, organize the supply lines, and advance the fleet into the-”

“Right. You’d work even harder.” Ren straightened, no longer looming, but still looking down at Hux. “Your punishment is all in your head.”

“Really? Did I also imagine the daily treason accusations?”

Ren stared at him for a long moment. “No. But that’s the thing about you, Hux. If you thought you’d make a better Supreme Leader - which you do - I think you would tell yourself that killing me would save billions of lives. And you’d do it with a clear conscience.”

Hux shot to his feet, furious. “ _No_. I would never-”

Ren gripped his wrists, his own expression dark. “ _You would_.”

“I could have neutralized you without killing you. Your death would never have been necessary.” The justification was out of Hux’s mouth before he could stop it. He hated that it automatically proved Ren’s point. “I didn’t try that either,” he added quickly.

Ren cocked his head slightly, his eyes twitching in annoyance. “I can’t tell if that’s true or not.”

Hux couldn’t, either. He’d certainly entertained scenarios where Ren was only a Snoke-like figurehead. He knew Ren would never agree to it, but that hadn’t mattered. The idea that Ren believed him capable of murdering him in cold blood hurt him in a way he didn’t think he could be hurt. “Do you really think I’d believe that the First Order would be stronger without you? That I’d be better off with you dead?”

Ren grew angrier at that, and Hux flinched when some of his emotions spilled into Hux’s thoughts. He hadn’t expected it. Ren released his wrists and took a step back, his voice quiet.

“That’s what you told me the day we lost Starkiller and the _Supremacy_.”

Hux’s brow furrowed, and he remembered. Worse, he remembered the first time he woke up without Ren, and how long it had taken him to understand that all their setbacks were due to Ren’s absence.

“I was wrong. I know that now. But even then, I wouldn’t have been able to justify your death. To kill you with a clear conscience. I could never do that to you.”

“Isn’t that what you did when you fired the weapon?”

Hux gestured dismissively, angry at the change of topic. “Snoke was the one that caused the unnecessary deaths. He ordered the other four planets destroyed. That was… excessive. Unfortunate.”

Ren smirked. “Convenient. Do you think Snoke gave the order, knowing that you’d immediately blame him for all of it and move on with your life? That it would keep you working efficiently if you never had to think of that atrocity again, knowing it was _Snoke’s_  fault?”

“That’s not what-” Hux went cold, and stopped. That was exactly what he was doing, blaming Snoke for all of it. His thoughts were spinning, and he felt sick. “That doesn’t make sense. Snoke didn’t care about… me, or the Order. He wouldn’t have thought of it.”

Ren’s expression hardened again, and Hux felt the cold hard needles of Ren’s unbalanced Force biting into his skin, but it retreated in an instant.

“He knew. That was how Snoke worked.” Ren’s eyes glanced to the side briefly, then back to Hux. “He told me the same thing about my father. Kill him, because he was one of my last ties to the Light. And what was one death, if it meant advancing the Order that meant so much to us?”

Hux said nothing. Han Solo was so insignificant. The least dangerous member of the Resistance cell that had infiltrated the planet. Just a distraction, and one that had worked.

“Hux. You’ve seen so many bad things. You’ve _done_  so many bad things. You justify them, and you make everything worth the cost. That’s what you do. If it occurred to you to kill me, you would do it. Maybe you’d order someone else to do it. Phasma. Or you’d order my food poisoned. Maybe find another one of those beetles that got your father.”

Hux felt his face redden again. Watching Ren die like that would have been awful. He opened his mouth to respond, and Ren put up a palm to stop him.

“So I knew not to trust you after Snoke died. And I knew all the ways you couldn’t be trusted. So no, I didn’t let you meet with the other officers to give clandestine orders. And… everything you said, all of it after Snoke died. _I wanted it_. I wanted to believe you so badly. You believed yourself. But I know you. And I couldn’t.”

Ren _couldn’t_. That’s still where all this was going. “So you hounded my every step. _Kept me close_ ,” Hux remarked bitterly. “Lied to me. About everything. About the girl killing Snoke. About thinking this whole trip was some plot to murder you.”

“Yeah. Of course I did.” Ren glanced around the ship. “This trip was suspicious, that was true. You acted like you were giving up on something. You would never do that, so I assumed you were lying about the shore leave.”

Hux pushed his wet hair back again, suddenly tired. “Well. I knew you wouldn’t expect the truth from me.”

“Your truth is relative. But I do trust you with the Order. And I trust you to be yourself.” Ren smirked again. He was growing less angry. Hux was surprised to sense… something like fondness over Ren’s anger. He’d assumed that he could only sense the anger because Ren was losing control, but he was much calmer now.

Ren turned, making his way back to the open hatch of the ship. He stared down at the pile of Hux’s sodden greatcoat and tunic. “The protocol droid and my cape are still in the village. But I don’t want to go back for them.”

“The protocol droid was old. I assumed it would be a loss, anyway.” Hux sighed. He didn’t know what to make of that conversation, other than Ren saw him as a cold-blooded murderer capable of anything. Ren wasn’t exactly wrong to be suspicious about any of that. And Hux couldn’t leave. He couldn’t change what he’d done.

Ren still believed Hux might stab him in the back. But he could also sense fondness from Ren now, and amusement. Hope welled inside him, but Hux crushed it immediately. The brush of Ren’s thoughts was temporary. Ren was upset, he’d lost control, he didn’t realize he was doing it.

_You’re wrong_ , Ren sent into his thoughts, and Hux jumped, looking over at him.

Hux’s throat went tight again. He ran his hands across his chest to straighten his uniform. His uniform wasn’t there, only a wet undershirt and his suspenders.

“What am I wrong about, Ren?”

“Your uniform is ruined,” Ren replied, glancing up from the wet clothes and over to Hux. “Did you bring another one?”

“No. I didn’t think I needed it.”

“Fine. You won’t. I’m promoting you to Grand Marshall when we get back.”

Hux stared at him. And suddenly, he was laughing again. Not hysterical laughter this time. Ren’s statement was genuinely funny. When he tried to answer, Ren’s frown of disapproval only made him laugh harder.

“Stop it,” Ren finally ordered, voice hard. He walked over to Hux, grabbing his biceps. His gloves were muddy, and they squelched against Hux’s slick, bare skin. Hux could still sense Ren’s thoughts, an odd mix of annoyance and concern that seemed so novel after all their time apart. Hux clenched his jaw and willed himself back under control, then looked up into Ren’s face.

“It’s just… after all that. What difference would a promotion make? It wouldn’t change anything about my standing in the Order. You simply made up a rank higher than General.” He started to laugh again, and Ren’s grip tightened on his biceps.

“You’ve never laughed this hard before. Is it really that funny? I think you deserve it.”

“I deserved it before today. Why now? After you told me you expect me to murder you any day?”

“I said I trust you to be yourself, and to do what was best for the Order.” Ren’s annoyance grew for a moment, then dissipated abruptly. Before Hux could understand why, Ren glanced away, then back. “I do love you.”

The pronouncement was so unexpected that Hux laughed again. He tried to pull back from Ren, but Ren held him firmly in place.

“Suddenly? Ren, I’ve been begging you for nearly five months to change your mind. And all it took was watching what must have… looked like a delusion, for me to humiliate myself in front of you and an entire culture and an empty cave? You just explained exactly why I would murder you, _and you were right_. Why this, Ren?”

Ren studied him quietly, his gaze intent. His thoughts were still distinctly present in Hux’s mind. He was nervous about whatever he was about to say. Frightened. Hux frowned. What could that mean?

“You’ve been trying to prove yourself. You did everything you thought would change my mind. But that was the problem, Hux. It was too good to be true, and the timing was…” Ren was angry for a moment, then shook his head and continued. “I _wanted_  it to be true. But it all came right after you saw Snoke’s body, and I knew better. You told me earlier that day that you would kill me in my sleep. I believed you.”

“I didn’t mean it,” Hux quickly interjected. “I didn’t mean any of that, there was-”

“You did. And then you said everything you thought I wanted to hear in the throne room.” Ren studied him again, and Hux remained silent. Whatever happened to them after this would be decided now, and Hux dreaded it. Ren’s thoughts were still a roil of fear and nervousness. As he waited for Ren to continue, Hux realized that he felt the same, that some of Ren’s emotions were feeding on his own. Suddenly, the years fell away, and he remembered their first meeting, when they’d been so drawn to each other, when they’d both imagined kissing, and thought they’d driven the other away.

“I’ve always loved you,” Ren blurted in response to this, his features softening. “Since we met. You know that. I wanted to believe you, I wanted you to mean every word you said after Snoke died. But it was all too calculated to please me. You knew exactly what you needed to say, and you said it. Sometimes, I’d imagine what you’d say to me next, and I’d be right every time.” Ren glanced down, swallowing. He squeezed Hux’s bare arms again, then looked back up and continued. “Except for this trip. It felt like you were giving up. So I thought your strategy had changed, and you were going to meet someone here.” Ren grew sadder, and his grip on Hux’s arms tightened further, just on the edge of painful.

Ren continued, stricken. “You… I don’t know where you found this planet, but you tried _religion_. You found some culture that had ties to the Force, and you tried to ask them for advice. You tried to do it without me. And you… really said everything you felt in front of them. Not to me, you didn’t care that I was there. You tried to follow their philosophy, and you tried to make them understand you, and you couldn’t. And you went to that cave. I thought you were going to-” Ren blinked. “None of that was a lie, because I don’t think you know how to lie like that. It was all… you, trying to reconnect with me. To fix things.”

Hux clenched his jaw. Time stopped, his world narrowed. This was. It was. He lowered his gaze to Ren’s chest, then met Ren’s eyes with difficulty.

Ren was trying to say that he finally understood. So Hux had to speak, and it had to mean something. It had to come out right.

“I’m sorry for the timing. And I’m sorry I didn’t see what was happening before I did.” He narrowed his eyes. “You have to know. I wouldn’t apologize unless I meant it. And I wouldn’t-” He dropped his gaze again. This was still difficult. “I wouldn’t _say_  all of it. It’s still hard for me. And I know- I didn’t think you needed to hear me say anything, but.” He forced himself to meet Ren’s eyes again. Ren still looked stricken, and his thoughts had receded.

Hux’s voice was beginning to shake, and he tried to steady himself. He couldn’t. “Before we met, Ren. I couldn’t stop thinking of you. And even then, I didn’t let myself see. Then, or later.” Hux was rambling. He didn’t do that. He hoped it was right. That it was worth fourteen (thirteen? eighteen?) years of denial.

“I love you too. I always have. You know that.”

Ren’s eyes, those sad eyes that always looked to Hux for approval, watered, and he looked down.

“I didn’t.”

Hux grabbed his face. He forced Ren to look into his eyes. “Don’t. I’ll say it again, and you have to know I mean it. It isn’t manipulation, or. It is, because I want you back, and I’ll say anything. This, what we have. What we do together. It’s everything, Ren. It means everything to me. I’m sorry I never told you before. I’m sorry for how I treated you. I would take back my bad behavior, all my suspicion, all the misunderstandings. I would tell you as much as you like that I want everything you are, and always have. You are singular. I would always want you, no matter what. I’ll tell you every day if it means that you would trust me again.”

Ren looked back up. His face was red, and his cheeks were damp and hot beneath Hux’s palms. His eyelashes were stuck together. Hux brushed one with a thumb. Ren blinked, and finally replied. “Okay. Do that. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

Hux closed his eyes kissed him, with Ren’s gloved hands wrapped around his biceps and his own palms spread across Ren’s stubbly, mud-spattered cheeks. His lips were cold and damp, but they opened, and Hux kissed him like a drowning man, like he would die if he couldn’t. He found Ren’s tongue, and they nipped, sucked, and licked at each other until Hux couldn’t breathe, and then longer, because he was afraid of what would happen when the kiss ended. He wanted to stop breathing, wanted to sustain himself simply on Ren, but he grew lightheaded, and pulled back.

He felt a tremor in his hands, and kept his eyes closed, lest he find out that Ren hadn’t wanted the kiss after all. He eventually couldn’t help but look, and allowed himself to stare at Ren’s mouth, his lips and the red tip of his nose, gathering the courage to raise his eyes and look fully at his face.

Before he could, Ren pushed his thoughts forcefully into Hux’s mind. Hux took in his emotions then - still panic, trepidation, confusion, affection. They were too similar to his own to be distinct, but Ren’s thoughts dispelled Hux’s doubt. Ren had _wanted_  the kiss. Liked it. Wanted Hux back.

Hux did look back into his face then. “Ren. I thought I’d lost it. Everything I told those aliens was true. I was so sure- I was so sure I’d never have you back. I thought you were gone, and would take the Order with you. You never change your mind.” Hux blinked. “You shouldn’t have.”

“I shouldn’t have,” Ren agreed. “Jara will be so disappointed.”

Hux smirked, amused. “Jara will always be disappointed.” He remembered Jara and Bariss in the hangar, and what a shock it had been. “I was telling the truth about my memories, by the way.”

Ren frowned, more confused now, though most of what he was feeling was growing affection. “I… saw something wrong when I looked before. I know you have different memories. A lot of them, on top of all the same ones. I thought you’d done it to yourself.”

“I didn’t.” It was true, but Hux didn’t want to ruin the moment by explaining further. “I had no idea Jara and Bariss were together. Did we really eat with them?”

“Yes.”

“Was it very awkward?”

“The worst. Jara hates you.”

“You hate Bariss.”

Ren leaned in to kiss him again. It was indulgent, and Hux reveled in the slide of Ren’s lips against his own, in the taste of Ren’s tongue in his mouth, in the way Ren was squeezing his arms again like he couldn’t help himself. He wanted to press his body along Ren’s, wanted to be as close as possible. He wanted to cry, which Ventu seemed to bring out in him.

He had Ren. They’d found each other again.

Their thoughts were together and indistinct again, both feeling the same kind of affection, each resigning themselves to the other, elated, overcome.

After a few more moments of tasting each other and reveling in the twist of their emotions, Ren pushed more distinct thoughts and memories to Hux - his regret, how much Ren had missed him, how much Ren wanted this. How it had felt to be rejected by Hux in the past, again and again, and his growing dissatisfaction with his life in the First Order. How dangerous Hux had seemed to him, offering exactly what he wanted, and how much he had _wanted_ , how difficult it had been to resist.

Hux couldn’t stand any more of it. He’d fix it all if he could. He breathed heavily through his nose, wrapped his hands around the back of Ren’s neck, then took a risk. He threw himself blindly at Ren’s new trust. He showed Ren more of the strange lives he’d experienced, his own version and not the ones Ren had ripped from him before. He showed Ren the number of times he’d run away, and how he regretted it. He showed Ren how difficult his searches had been, and how he hadn’t given up. He showed Ren the Senator version of himself, and how they’d been the rulers of the New Republic together, married in their expensive Republic penthouse bought with their Republican credits.

Ren pulled away from his mouth, amused, exhaling a breath against his lips. Hux closed his eyes.

“You believe all of this. Like it really happened to you.”

“It did.” Ren’s amused incredulity didn’t bother him this time. It wasn’t an entire lifetime that Ren was denying him, just a difficult trial that was over now, one that Hux would never be able to explain.

He opened his eyes again, then shifted his grip, taking Ren’s hands in his own and slowly removing Ren’s gloves. The gloves were soaked, and it was difficult to peel them from Ren’s hands. Hux had to turn them inside out, pulling them carefully from Ren’s fingers. Ren’s hands were cold. He held them, because he didn’t know what else to do. He was desperate.

“I’m glad it happened,” Hux replied. “Whether you believe it or not. Because this is better now, isn’t it?”

Ren smiled genuinely, and it was as good as it always was - his usual melancholy expression disappearing so abruptly, and the shock of how the rare smiles and happiness suited Ren’s features so well, making him look younger and recalling the shy smiles of Ben Solo. Hux’s heart twisted. It always felt like a victory when it happened, and like a secret the two of them kept together.

Ren smirked, likely picking that up in Hux’s thoughts. He looked smug as he took each of Hux’s hands, then kissed the palms, still muddy and scraped from falling outside. Ren rested Hux’s palms on his shoulders, then reached down, tugging on one side of Hux’s suspenders and pulling his undershirt from his trousers, his cold hands finding Hux’s belly, the backs of his knuckles brushing lightly against his still-damp skin.

“Ren. The berth, we need-”

“Bed. We haven’t used it-”

“Years. Seven years. I haven’t used the berth on this shuttle since the trip to Intora.” Some boring diplomatic errand that had required Command oversight. They’d been quartered separately, and each room had been the size of a closet, neither the bed nor the floor adequate for sleeping even one person. They’d decided to abuse the bed in Ren’s shuttle on the way back, indulging in a contest to see who could have the most orgasms.

Hux could see the same memory in Ren’s thoughts, they were both thinking of it now. Back then, Ren had come six times, Hux only four. At the time, Hux had insisted he was the winner, since he’d been the one who’d gotten Ren off. Now, he was jealous.

Hux led the way, taking Ren’s hand and pulling him toward the main berth, both of them nearly tripping over themselves in their haste. At the doorway, Ren snapped Hux’s suspenders against his back, and Hux hissed, glaring over his shoulder despite himself.

“Must you?”

“Yes. I missed it.”

Hux faced forward, cursing under his breath when he remembered his code cylinders were in his tunic, impatient with having to enter the lock sequence manually. “So did I.”

They both stumbled through the doorway, Hux fumbling briefly for the light panel and missing. Before Ren could snap the suspenders again, they were off his shoulders, Hux ducking his touch to unzip his pants. Ren tore at his undershirt, trying to pull it up at once.

He yanked the hem above Hux’s head, then froze, the shirt covering Hux’s face. Hux grunted in annoyance, then peeled it the rest of the way from his body, unnerved by Ren’s sudden hesitance.

“What? Change your mind, now that you’ve had a look at me?”

“No, it’s-” Ren’s eyes were on Hux’s chest. He glanced up, then back down, fingering his ID tags.

“Oh. Your crystal.”

“You kept it.”

“Of course I did. I’ve never taken it off.” Hux grabbed Ren’s hand and squeezed, frustrated, not willing to be derailed by this. He was eager, he couldn’t undress fast enough. He needed to take off his boots.

“Yourself, Ren. Quickly. We need to-”

“I know.”

The door slid closed behind Ren. The small porthole next to the bed was clouded with a heavy sheet of water, letting the last of the daylight flicker dimly into the room. The bed was enormous, custom ordered despite the fact he and Ren had only shared it a handful of times.

“More. We’ll do it more now,” Ren muttered in response to Hux’s thought.

Hux grinned. “If you like. Supreme Leader.”

Hux’s boots were difficult to remove. They’d filled with water and were stuck fast to Hux’s feet. Ren, impatient, pushed Hux back onto the bed, yanking them off himself. Ren, predictably, had managed to strip all his own wet clothes off in less than a minute.

“I couldn’t always undress this fast.”

“No. When you were a Jedi, those damn robes took forever.”

“I remember.”

Ren was on top of him, and they were kissing frantically, Hux’s hands all over Ren’s back, his arms, his ass. All of his scars were in the right places. He was just the right shape, muscular and soft and absolutely crushing the breath out of Hux. Ren’s skin was clammy and damp from the rain, and Hux decided that they needed to fix that.

Hux pushed, showing Ren in his thoughts what he wanted, and Ren obediently went to his back to reverse their positions. Hux straddled Ren’s hips and stared for a moment, taking his time to appreciate Ren’s body. It was just as he left it, and still stunning after all these years.

He began tracing an index finger over a nipple, already hard from the chill of the rainwater. He ran light fingertips along the line of Ren’s pectoral, moving down his stomach to the line of dark hair that disappeared underneath Hux’s cock and led to Ren’s own enormous, ridiculous erection, currently trapped beneath Hux’s ass. Then, his touch moved higher, tracing the fresh scar that led from his shoulder to his neck and across his face.

“Did I do it this time?”

“What? The scar?” Ren looked confused. “Do you… remember hurting me?”

“No. The scavenger did,” Hux finished quickly, fearing that Ren’s good will would vanish. “But I. We had a bacta shortage, and I used it on your hip. I was… stingy about your face.”

Ren frowned. “I had a droid fix it. You didn’t do anything.” He looked away. “Just… tranquilized me, after the briefings. On the transport, and again on the _Finalizer_  before we met the _Supremacy_.”

Hux leaned over abruptly, kissing Ren’s scar, not wanting to talk about that now or ever again. “I made sure you weren’t going to die. I should have tried harder to keep your face from scarring. But. I like it.” He sat up, palms on Ren’s collarbones, studying him. “You earned it.”

“I failed,” he offered, his expression clouding again.

“You lived. And it’s one more thing about you that I can have.”

“My _scars_.”

“Yes,” Hux replied firmly, tracing a deep scar on his opposite shoulder, a blaster wound from several years ago. “Only you and I see them, and we’re the only ones who know how they happened.” His hand moved back down to Ren’s chest, fingering a long, light scar that ran along his left side. “These are all where I remember them. Along with this.” His thumb found the moles on Ren’s face, and more, tracing them down his neck, across his chest.

“My moles?” Ren’s eyebrows went up. “Did you forget them?”

“No. I didn’t appreciate them like I should have.”

Ren grabbed Hux’s fingers, squeezing hard and stared at him intently. “Hux. You are…” His brows furrowed. “I’ve imagined you doing something like this since we met. And you’re doing it _now_. Why are you such an asshole?”

Hux was offended by the insult and rejection, but he stopped himself from an immediate response and gave himself a moment longer to think about it. Ren was feeling overwhelmed, eager, _frustrated_. Hux suddenly realized what Ren meant, and he grinned, rocking his ass against Ren’s erection.

Ren was turned on by Hux’s adoration, both the physical touch and the pleasure of it in Hux’s thoughts. Ren had always enjoyed praise, but Hux had never been so generous or sincere with it. He was helplessly, overwhelmingly aroused, and utterly lost to it. If Hux slid a knife between his ribs in the moment, Ren would thank him and die happy.

Ren closed his eyes and let out a small groan of frustration, reaching up to Hux’s hips and rocking into the motion. “This is what I’m taking about. I really. I _missed_  you. Can I. Can we-”

“Do you want to fuck me? Would you rather I fuck you?”

“Fuck me?” This seemed to leave Ren stunned. “You’d. You’d do that?”

Hux frowned. “When was the last time we had sex?”

“Three years ago.”

“It hadn’t been _that_  long before,” Hux replied, angry with himself. “What a waste. And when was the last time I fucked you?”

Ren stared at him a moment. “Do you remember the first time you used your mouth?”

Hux knew what he meant. He did. When he said nothing, Ren continued. “It was the first year I was here. I told you it was my birthday, and you didn’t understand what I meant. Since the First Order doesn’t celebrate birthdays, you told me I made it up for attention. But you. You, uh. _Licked_  down there, and you-” Ren’s face reddened. “I liked it. I always like it when you do that. I remember every time. Vividly.”

He should have guessed Ren would ask for that - Ren completely lost control whenever Hux used his mouth on his ass, so he always saved it for special occasions.

Hux found he couldn’t help himself. He frowned down at Ren, giving him a considered look. “It’s not your birthday, is it?”

“ _Hux_.”

Hux smirked in response, then glanced over at the small set of drawers next to the bed, gesturing. “Will you… summon it? I missed-”

Before Hux could finish the sentence, Ren’s hand was out, the drawer was on the floor, and the small bottle of lubricant was in Ren’s hand.

Hux’s smirk widened into a genuine smile as he took the bottle from Ren and examined it. “This isn’t very much. Do you get lonely on missions?”

“Very.” Ren squirmed, shifting his legs to move Hux off his lap. He turned himself over, pushing himself up onto his knees and leaning his head against his arms, ass in the air. “Hurry. Do it now.”

Ren presenting himself like this was always one of Hux’s favorite things. He stroked a hand along one of Ren’s thighs, feeling the still-cool skin, the prickle of the hairs against his palms. He stroked his fingertips up higher, softly caressing one side of Ren’s perfect ass, and Ren shivered.

Their thoughts were still intertwined, both of them feeling overwhelmed, eager, _appreciative_. Both in disbelief that this was happening, and wary about all of it being too good to be true. Hux was also picking up more distinct thoughts from Ren, along with lust and attraction - Ren’s obsession with the freckles on Hux’s thighs, the soft skin on the crease between thigh and hip, the silky texture of Hux’s cock-

Amid all of that, Ren was still, somehow, expecting a trap from Hux. That Hux would kill him, or mock him for his foolishness and predictability, or betray him in bed. Ren sensed that Hux had seen his worry, and quickly hid it again. Ren thought it didn’t matter, that he was happy now, and then, embarrassed, hid that thought from Hux as well.

“Ren,” Hux said, still hurt by Ren’s mistrust, even while he was making himself so vulnerable. “I’ll make it up to you.”

And he would. For the rest of their lives, if he needed to. Which would start, apparently, with Hux opening Ren with his fingers. It really had been a long time since they’d done this, and Hux wondered if Ren did it to himself in private. It would be easier.

“I don’t,” Ren said, more embarrassment in his thoughts. “I can’t do it as well as you.”

“Bantha shit. You’re better than I am,” Hux replied, annoyed. Ren was a fucking master with his fingers. It was insulting that he didn’t think so.

“It’s not the same when you do it to yourself, and you know it.”

Hux rolled his eyes. He was less amorous than Ren in general, and had rarely pleasured himself when they’d been together before. Since Ventu, he’d masturbated more often, but it had always been enough to jerk himself off. So no, he’d never tried to finger his own ass. It wouldn’t have been the same without Ren.

“See?”

“Ren, I can’t tell you how much I missed you reading my every thought. Welcome back.”

“I’ve been doing it-”

“I know.” He wasn’t annoyed, not really, but it made for frustrating pillow talk, to have every single one of his thoughts voiced aloud.

Before he let himself dwell any further, he squeezed the bottle of lube onto his fingers. It was cold, but no colder than their skin was, and they were both still thoroughly soaked from the rain. It stung the scrapes on Hux’s palm, but Hux ignored the pain, too overwhelmed by everything else. He ran a thumb slowly down Ren’s ass, prodding gently at the rim of his hole. Ren hissed and flexed his thighs, anticipating Hux’s touch.

“ _Hux_ ,” Ren said urgently. “ _Your mouth_ , please-”

“Patience,” Hux insisted, still not willing to rush himself through this, not entirely sure Ren would let him do it again. He leaned forward, running his tongue along Ren’s perineum to his hole. He wouldn’t normally. Especially since they hadn’t showered beforehand. But tasting Ren seemed… important.

He was cold from the rain, with the sharp metallic taste from the water. A little salty. The taste of him was never particularly good, but it was the thought that counted, and Ren flexed into it, making a sharp noise when Hux’s tongue teased his rim.

Hux closed his eyes, and rather than rimming him in earnest, moved back down, his lips closing around Ren’s balls. He sucked, prodding them with his tongue, enjoying the sensation of the soft skin against his lips. Ren moaned, and Hux felt the spasm as Ren’s cock jumped. He reached up, stilling it with his hand and holding it in place, but doing nothing more just yet.

“Hux, _please_ , hurry-”

Hux really wanted to suck Ren’s cock, but knew Ren wouldn’t last long that way. He thought of the Ren that Hux had finally tracked down to his prison cell on WS-19557. He’d come so fast, just from Hux’s touch.

“ _Yes_ ,” Ren whined. “ _Hux_. If you don’t hurry, I’m going to come soon, and I won’t let you touch me again.”

This was an idle threat. Hux sucked hard one last time, then pulled away and kissed the inside of his thigh gently. Then, he exhaled against Ren’s entrance and gently pushed his tongue inside. Ren moaned deeply, and Hux felt it through his entire body. He hadn’t quite prepared himself for how that would feel, and he took a moment to pull away and catch his breath, one hand still wrapped around Ren’s cock. He squeezed it affectionately, and felt it jerk in his grip in return.

Ren was panting, and Hux wasn’t far behind. He leaned forward and continued, allowing himself to lavish sloppy attention on Ren’s hole. He did it much more eagerly than he ever had before, reveling in the way Ren’s body twitched beneath his face and the filthy noises Ren was making. Normally, the sight of his own saliva on Ren’s ass disgusted him. Today, it made his own cock throb.

He leaned back to admire the mess as Ren bunched his fists in the sheets and tried to get control of himself. Hux ran a lube-slicked finger through the dampness, tracing the rim of Ren’s hole. Ren moaned, grabbing a pillow and attempting to muffle his increasingly loud reactions into it.

Ren’s skin had warmed beneath his touch, finally, and Hux could see the pale pallor flush and redden as color crept down the nape of Ren’s neck. He rubbed his fingers together to ensure they were still slick, and slipped his index finger experimentally inside Ren. He was warm, and much more relaxed than Hux thought he might be. He was ready, eager for more.

“I told you I was ready. Hurry.”

Hux didn’t particularly want to. He wanted to milk a prostate orgasm from Ren. He twisted his hand and experimented, stroking a fingertip inside Ren until he was howling and squirming beneath him. When Ren’s jerks and spasms became too energetic, Hux removed his other hand from Ren’s cock and held his thigh, pleased with how affected Ren was. He began pumping his finger in and out of Ren, slowly at first, then faster, pulling on Ren’s rim, flexing his finger inside, teasing him with an occasional push at just the right angle.

Hux always forgot how much he loved watching Ren come apart like this. As much as he liked having Ren do this to him, having Ren’s big hands and big cock and big body pressing into him, the reverse was exciting in a different way. This was the most powerful man in the galaxy, and he allowed Hux to do this. And it was so easy for Hux, with the constant pulse of Ren’s pleasure in his thoughts, what Ren wanted, what Hux could do to tease more of a reaction from him. A twist of his finger, the push of a second digit inside, and Ren was grunting, his eyes closed and his thighs quivering beneath Hux’s palm. What was visible of Ren’s face was red, and Hux could see his ears were hot where they stuck out from his still-wet hair. Hux regretted that Ren’s hair was not fanned out across the pillow. He wanted to run his fingers through it, feel how soft it was.

“Yours.” Ren gasped, his eyes opening. “Your hair. When it’s loose. I. Like it best. I love it when it falls around your face. Never get tired of it.”

Hux rewarded him with a third finger, twisting sharply inside him. It was tight, and Hux winced in sympathy as Ren bucked, his hips jerking away, then back, seeking more. Ren’s hands were gripping the pillow by his face tightly, and Hux could feel in his thoughts how badly he wanted pressure against his cock, how much it was beginning to ache. Should he stroke it? Should he squeeze it, press it against Ren’s stomach?

“Don’t you dare,” Ren snapped. “Fuck me, Hux. Do it. I want to stay all night on this mudhole planet with you inside me.”

Hux rolled his eyes. That was a little over-dramatic, but his own cock was aching in sympathy, and he badly wanted it inside Ren. He wasn’t as close as Ren was, but he still wasn’t sure he’d last long inside him. He glanced at his hand, where his fingers were still moving in and out of Ren. Their mutual lust cascaded through his thoughts, and he could sense Ren spying on his thoughts, watching Hux marvel at how his fingers were disappearing inside. Such a simple thing, and so common. But it still felt incredible, and Hux wondered how many beings could experience it the way Ren did, taking the pleasure from Hux’s thoughts as he reveled in his own.

He glanced down the long line of Ren’s back, down the length of bunching and flexing muscles to his tight shoulders, and again to the nape of his neck. Hux could fuck him like this, could wrap himself around his back, but.

“Turn over,” he said instead. “I want to see your face.”

He wanted to see Ren’s expression, every twitch of muscle as he entered, and whether or not Ren looked at him or kept his eyes closed. Ren lapsed into stunned silence for a moment, then flooded Hux’s thoughts with appreciation and affection.

Hux realized Ren was _charmed_  by the request. He thought it was _cute_  that Hux had asked. Very romantic.

“Don’t then,” Hux snapped. “We’ve always done it like this. You must like it better.”

“Yeah,” Ren agreed, still slightly breathless. “Your cock goes deeper like this. You can’t reach far enough if I’m on my back.”

Hux slapped his ass hard, and Ren laughed, but flipped over. He was smiling again, pushing his hair out of his face so Hux could see his expression better, the way the scar transformed him but didn’t take any of the joy away.

He bent his knees and tucked his hands behind his head, flexing his chest slightly as Hux’s gaze was drawn to it. His manner was so casual, so carefree and confident, that the years dropped away again and Hux was reminded again of Ben Solo, begging Hux to fuck him on his birthday.

He knelt between Ren’s legs and positioned himself carefully, pushing Ren’s thighs back as he did. He grabbed Ren’s hips and lifted, then flexed his hips and dragged his cock along Ren until he felt the tip catch at Ren’s rim. He pushed carefully, trusting Ren to support himself as he guided his cock inside slowly, so slowly. Ren was still tight, and Hux winced, not quite prepared for how that would feel to him.

He moved his hand back to Ren’s hip and shifted his grip. He was surprised when Ren grabbed his hands and intertwined their fingers, then wrapped his legs around Hux’s waist, angling himself to give Hux better access.

Then, he _pulled_  Hux closer with his muscular thighs, startling a shout from Hux as he abruptly shifted deeper. Ren moaned, squeezing Hux’s hands and closing his eyes. As much as Hux craved the expression on Ren’s face, he closed his own eyes. Ren was, as ever, _a lot_ , and Hux had forgotten what it was like to be inside him. Ren was around him and beneath him and in his thoughts and holding his hands. Ren had a talent for making everything else vanish, stealing all of Hux’s attention for himself.

Hux pushed himself deeper, slumping forward and groaning as his hips finally met Ren’s ass. He sometimes hated the way he sounded during sex, and the way it meant that he’d lost control of himself. Buried deep inside Ren, he felt like a wild animal at the mercy of Ren’s ass.

Ren laughed. Hux opened his eyes and clenched his jaw, annoyed again by Ren’s mind reading, concentrating on not simply fucking into Ren as fast and hard as he wanted.

“You can do that,” Ren offered, breathing harder as he tried to relax himself around Hux. He was _so tight_. Ren exhaled sharply, clenching his muscles around Hux and eliciting another moan. “I like it when you lose control.”

“Not this time,” Hux replied, voice thin and not without remorse. “Maybe we’ll have another orgasm counting contest, though.”

It was Ren who made the undignified noise this time, and Hux used the opportunity to thrust once, pulling back quickly and pushing himself forward again. They were both panting and sweating now, the clamminess of the rain gone. Ren’s legs were heavy against his back, his hands were warm on Hux’s own, and he was so hot around Hux’s cock.

Hux shook his head, feeling the heavy wetness of his hair sway around his face as he leaned over Ren. His hair was still wet enough that a few droplets shook free and spattered Ren’s chest. He stared into Ren’s face, studying it, memorizing it all over again. The creases in his forehead, the hollows beneath his eyes, his strangely delicate brows and eyelashes, his nose and ears, those lips. They were parted slightly, his teeth just visible between, his breath coming hard now. Ren stared back, expression strangely unreadable for the middle of sex, but his mind was open to Hux.

He _wanted_. He wanted nearly as badly as Hux did, and their lust was intertwined, each feeding off the other. A stray thought occurred to Ren, that he had died, separated from Hux, and felt like he was being reborn again.

“ _Please_ ,” Hux said, closing his eyes and pulling back out experimentally. “It’s nothing like that.”

Ren was insulted, naturally, by Hux balking at his dramatics. Hux thrust in again, feeling powerful with Ren beneath him, feeling loved, feeling _complete_  in a way he hadn’t in a long while.

He felt alive. And it was ridiculous, and very Ren. And also true.

Hux bent down and kissed Ren as he began a regular rhythm, both hands moving to cradle his face as he pushed his fingers into the damp mess of Ren’s hair. Ren made small noises into Hux’s mouth, seeming unable to help himself. He thought it really was like breathing, then decided that it had been Ren’s thought, rather than his own.

They stayed that way for a long time, longer than Hux believed they could. He didn’t touch Ren’s cock, though he could sense how much pain Ren was in, how much he needed release. Hux’s orgasm built slow, and it felt as if they were holding each other back, willing it to last longer now that they were finally together.

Ridiculous. Sentimental.

When Hux finally touched Ren, it was as if his hand dropped on its own accord to stroke Ren to completion, so that the orgasm hit both of them at the same time. He was aware of Ren in a way he usually wasn’t when they did this, their minds staying intertwined past the point where their own thoughts usually overwhelmed them. Hux could sense that Ren was as astonished as Hux was.

After, they held each other, naked and panting and damp from both rain and sweat. Hux laid on top of Ren, Ren’s thighs and arms wrapped around his back. Hux’s hands were still tangled in Ren’s hair, and he’d pressed his face into Ren’s neck. It felt natural, though they hadn’t touched in a long time. Hux was overly hot and aware of the mess on their chests and between Ren’s legs. Ren shifted, and Hux’s soft cock finally slipped out.

It felt so new and monumental, but in reality, nothing had happened. They’d had sex, in the same way humans had sex all across the galaxy. They were together, which was nothing special. And they loved each other, which was also common enough. Hearts were mended and broken every day.

But it was Ren. And Hux knew, no matter how far he searched, that there was no one else like Ren, and that what they had together was singular.

Ren’s thoughts were warm, and he seemed to agree in a lazy, indirect way. It was overly sentimental, and put Hux in a sudden contrary mood. He rolled to the side, sliding off Ren’s chest. Ren groaned and shifted, dumping Hux onto the mattress and rolling away. Hux followed him, wrapping an arm around Ren’s chest and fitting himself against his back.

The light outside had faded, and the room had filled with darkness. Their shared thoughts were echoing with a kind of static, pushing out all their other concerns, including the rather pressing issue of what this would all mean tomorrow. They really should check their messages. It wasn’t a good idea for Hux to go so long incommunicado, let alone the Supreme Leader vanishing overnight.

Then again, Bariss would cover for them. Bariss would probably know exactly what had happened. He smirked into the back of Ren’s neck and considered sending Bariss a “personal day” comm.

He didn’t have an extra uniform in the shuttle, so the two of them would need to go back wet. Unpleasant. He thought about having to retrieve Ren’s discarded cape in the village, then suddenly remembered Ren’s offer from earlier.

His eyes sprang open, and he tightened his grip on Ren’s chest. “A promotion because you love me is in such bad taste. It reeks of nepotism.”

“I don’t care.” Ren rolled over, facing Hux. “They know we’re together. What difference does it make if it’s more official? Would you prefer consort? Co-Supreme Leader?”

“No.” The thought was amusing, but picturing it as an official position turned Hux’s stomach. The Order simply didn’t do that. “Grand Marshall is fine.”

“I want them to know how important you are.”

Hux scowled. “They know because _I_  tell them. I don’t need help from you.”

“It wouldn’t hurt. The High Command meetings would go faster if you outranked the rest of them. More _efficient_. Isn’t that what you love?”

Hux sniffed. He always got his way at the High Command meetings. There were enough young Officers that backed him now. Still. It was a crucible, and Ren wasn’t wrong.

“I suppose.” He pushed Ren’s hair out of his face, ran his finger down the scar again. He’d missed it. He’d missed this.

Ren smiled again. “You did it. You finally convinced me.”

“I nearly left. You shouldn’t have held out so long.”

“Hux. You’re awful. Really.”

He sighed, closing his eyes. “I know.”

They were silent after that, both their thoughts filled with satisfaction and indistinct plans. With his eyes closed, the rain drumming against the window, and Ren in his arms, he was content to drift off to sleep. He’d been sleeping so badly. He pulled Ren closer, deciding to do just that.

“Hux. I love you. I always have. You know that, right?”

“Yes, Ren. I love you too. No matter what.” Hux didn’t have to open his eyes. The words came easily to him. So easily. All that time, lost.

“Hux. What comes next?”

Hux opened his eyes. He grinned, squeezing a fist into Ren’s hair. It was still too wet to properly appreciate.

“Everything.”


	25. Epilogue - Les Deux Amants

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bonus, for all those folks who told me they cried.

An epilogue, for all the people who told me they cried.

 

Hux woke from nothing, gripped by terror. He sat up in bed, sheets twisted tightly in his hands, breathing hard, eyes staring ahead into blackness as he tried to clamp down on his thoughts. He couldn’t remember why he was upset, but he also couldn’t remember where he was, or what he was doing-

Ren reached over and put an arm around his waist, pulling Hux closer. Hux’s pulse slammed in his throat for a few more beats, and his eyes stared blindly at the wall as he tried to calm himself down.

Ren.

_Ren_.

“Shh,” Ren murmured sleepily, pushing against Hux’s chest until he laid back down. He pulled Hux tight against him, then buried his face in Hux’s neck. “You’re too loud.”

Hux opened and closed his mouth a few times before he allowed himself to relax, rolling over on his side so Ren could pull him back to chest, his face buried in the back of Hux’s neck. Ren’s thoughts were hazy and slow, too slow to be distinct amid the chaos of Hux’s own. Hux tried to focus on them - sleep, contentment. _Hux_.

It still felt thrilling to have everything back. Ren was just as happy. They sometimes talked in bed, before falling asleep, reveling in the simple pleasure of being in each other’s presence. It hadn’t been like this between them since they were young. Or possibly ever.

It was uncomplicated in a way their relationship had never been. Ren was just Ren, and was much happier without Hux or Snoke trying to guide him unnecessarily.

“I wasn’t loud. I didn’t say anything,” Hux muttered, voice still uneven and overly-loud in the dark.

“Thinking too loud,” Ren explained, breathing into Hux’s hair. It was too hot for that, but rather than push him away, Hux grabbed his hand and held it to his chest, fingers twined with his own. By mutual unspoken agreement, the temperature in the bedroom had been set lower when Ren moved back in, and Ren held him almost all night.

“What was I dreaming? I can’t remember.”

Ren exhaled, annoyed, and Hux could feel his features shift against his skin. He pulled his hand away from Hux’s and rested his fingertips against Hux’s temple, his palm against his cheek.

“Doesn’t matter. Sleep.”

Hux laid his hand over Ren’s, curious. “Are you using the Force to put me to sleep?”

Ren groaned, pulling him tighter. “Don’t tempt me. Just sleep.”

Ren was more awake now, and more annoyed. Hux shifted to look over his shoulder.

“Can you? Really?”

Ren grunted, and moved his palm over Hux’s eyes. Hux felt amusement in Ren’s thoughts-

And then nothing as he slipped back into sleep, safe in his bed on the _Finalizer_ , in his and Ren’s suite of rooms.

Everything was as it should be.

 

  
***

 

  
Everything on Coruscant was much the way Hux had left it - the dry, hot air that smelled vaguely of ammonia even from his current height, the grit in the wind, the crumbling buildings and infrastructure. The atmo controls were still failing, and everything about the eroding structures and former life support systems was dangerous, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the sun burned high and brassy above the ruin of the planet-city.

Ren had piloted their ship this time, which Hux was grateful for, given the difficulties they now faced while traveling. There were Republican blockades in the Mid-Rim that actively patrolled for hostile First Order ships and spies. They were using a small unmarked pleasure barge that had the correct codes thanks to their smuggling network, so they were as safe as they could be. But Ren had pointed out, more than once, how smuggling the Supreme Leader and Grand Marshall of the First Order into the heart of the Republic was a stupid risk. His phrasing had amused Hux. The heart of the Republic was gone, and if Coruscant was now it, it was a foul thing.

Hux had insisted on the trip despite the risk, and had gotten his way when he’d pointed out how rarely he asked to go planetside. And Hux knew that Ren’s objections weren’t real. Such risk appealed to Ren, especially since it was Hux’s idea. Ren didn’t care why they were going - he had some vague ideas about Hux wanting to see the Imperial capital, and how he’d been raised to believe in its importance. Hux didn’t bother correcting him.

Now, Ren looked smug as they stood together outside their garish pleasure barge. He made a sweeping gesture, taking in their surroundings. “The Imperial Palace. Also, the Jedi Temple for a thousand years before that.”

They’d landed the barge on the roof of the palace, in what must have been a private bay for the Emperor. The landing facilities were surprisingly intact, but the Emperor’s gardens were not. The remnants spread out around them, a cacophony of dead vegetation that choked crumbling masonry beds, planters, and the garden paths. Hux noticed an enormous cleared area that had been scorched by fire. Only a few different species of hearty evergreen-type trees had survived the catastrophe, and now grew out of control.

Hux began walking, appreciating the rare opportunity for what it was. There were likely few in the galaxy who had seen the palace in the last thirty years. The garden was silent this time, the weather controls offering no breath of wind to stir the dead plants. His boots crunched over shattered porcelain tile, dead leaves, and the remains of twigs and branches as he took a winding path through the beds. The stillness was nearly deafening. Hux found it peaceful, though Ren grew restless after several minutes, confused by Hux’s interest.

“You aren’t looking at the city. I thought you’d want to see it,” Ren said into the silence.

“I’ve-” Hux stopped himself from saying he’d seen it. “I saw the skyline on the way in. But I’ve never seen anything like this garden.”

He came to a stop in an area where the porcelain tile path was still intact. It was a large clearing lined with low stone benches and ten statues on each side. The statues were massive, cut from grey stone and large enough to tower over most sentient species. They were representations of humans and humanoids, depicted in a rough angular style. Two had fallen forward, partially blocking the path and crushing the benches in front of them, and another had fallen backwards into the remains of a skeletal bed of slender tree trunks. Some were missing outstretched hands, and a Togruta was missing one side of its montrals. All wore draped robes and stared solemnly over the clearing, which ended at a decorative rail that overlooked the dead cityscape.

He turned to face Ren. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he repeated, which was true. He hadn’t found this particularly haunted section before. “Thank you. For flying the barge, for bringing me here, for agreeing to this.”

Ren stared at him for a few silent moments. The color of his scar had faded to pale pink, still a prominent line that cut across his face and down his neck, but not as livid as it had been. He was less pale now, and looked healthier and more well-rested after their reconciliation. He’d washed and groomed his hair that morning, likely in a fit of vanity, and it framed his face in dark waves. His expression was solemn and unreadable, and Hux held himself back from examining Ren’s thoughts, curious to see what Ren would offer aloud.

Ren finally sighed, stepping past Hux and examining one of the nearby statues, which depicted a bearded human.

“I never figured out why you asked to do this.”

Though they slept together, and were slowly piecing their personal lives back together, Ren was still wary of anything Hux proposed, always suspecting a trap. Not death, but that Hux’s reconciliation was too good to be true, and that he would reveal the true purpose at any time. It stung, but Hux hoped time would help.

“I wanted to see it with you.”

“I know.” Ren turned, looking at Hux now, his hands behind his back. They were both wearing the casual, shore-issue First Order attire. Ren’s navy blue tunic was as flattering as Hux remembered, clinging to his wide shoulders and chest, the belt cinched tightly at his waist, and the ends of the tunic trailing down to the ground, covering his boots and tight pants. He would have looked like he belonged in the Emperor’s gardens, were they still intact.

The sight of him still made Hux’s heart ache. Hux would always want him. And Ren would always understand him, though it might take time to earn his trust back completely.

Ren was likely reading his thoughts, because his expression turned sad. Hux stepped forward, reaching over to tuck Ren’s hair behind his ear. Ren immediately shook it out again, scowling, grabbing Hux’s hand to still it. Hux was also wearing his tight-fitting navy blue tunic, and though he still thought it made him look ridiculous, it had been at the edges of Ren’s thoughts since they’d boarded the transport.

“Do you know what this is?” Ren asked, turning back to the towering human figure, but wrapping an arm around Hux’s waist to pull him closer.

“No. What are any of these? I heard the Emperor collected art. I assumed they were all examples of galactic culture, or whatever one does with art.”

Ren smirked, his thoughts amused by Hux’s disdain, but continue to stare at the statue. “Did I tell you I saw this garden when I was younger?”

“No,” Hux lied. “Was it still growing at the time?”

Ren glanced at him sideways, likely sensing the lie, but continued. “Yeah. It was still green, and some of the plants were still flowering. It was isolated too, cut off from the rest of the city. I was with my-” he paused, but continued, unaffected. “My uncle Luke, and he showed me the palace.” He turned, looking at Hux. “I definitely told you before.”

“I remember. I wanted to hear it again. You said it was the most impressive building you’d ever seen. Is that still true?”

“Yeah. We’ll go inside, and I’ll show you. It still… feels like the Jedi Temple. Like the Emperor’s occupation was only temporary.”

“Do you want it?”

“What?” Ren frowned, confused.

“Do you want it? It’s yours. We’ll take the planet. How hard can it be? The defenses are inoperable, and the Republic doesn’t care about it.”

“It’s _Coruscant_. It’s a core world, Hux. How are you going to get a fleet and defenses here? We’d be in the center of hostile territory.”

“I’ll manage.” Hux had people that could do it for him, he was sure. “It’s quite the gesture, isn’t it?”

Ren’s face fell for a moment, misunderstanding what Hux meant by gesture. Hux waved a hand dismissively in the air. “I’m not trying to bribe you. If you want it, it’s yours. I’ll give it to you. It’s a gift, nothing more.”

“You’ll ‘give me’ the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.”

“Mmm. I’ll give it to you now. You’ll have to kick the squatters out.”

“How generous.” Ren frowned, gazing vaguely to the skyline. “I don’t… sense any squatters. There are presences, but I don’t think they’re alive.”

“Well. It _is_  haunted, then.”

“I told you.”

“The ghosts must have kicked the squatters out for you.”

“The planet was evacuated decades ago. There aren’t any living people here.”

Hux pulled away from Ren’s hold and walked to the end of the wide path, looking out over the city. “There are thousands that were left behind. We’ll go to the Senate next, if you wish.”

Ren approached the rail, leaning over to frown down at the city. “It can’t be. There aren’t any resources on Coruscant, they would have starved to death years ago. And the Republic would have found everyone during the evacuations.”

“They didn’t.” Hux pushed away from the rail, crossing his arms. He kept his eyes on the Senate building, and didn’t look at Ren. “I want to bring a cargo ship full of supplies, and I want to evacuate the planet for good. I’d like to do that first, before we start settling in.”

“Yeah,” Ren agreed, quietly. “So, you want to recruit them into the programs?”

“No,” Hux said sharply, turning to him. “I just want to move them somewhere else. This place is awful.”

Ren studied him again. “So… are you using them to re-colonize one of the dissenting worlds?”

Hux scowled. Ren was quoting propaganda back to him. “If that’s the first opportunity, yes.”

“And you know,” Ren pushed, leaning forward. “That we kill everyone on those dissenting worlds first. That we don’t just have departments that _re-home_  people. You know we force populations to move against their will to farm resources for us. And you know that not all these people will want to leave their homes. And you’ll take them anyway.”

It wasn’t a question. “Yes, I’ll take them! Ren, they-” He waved to the Senate. He shouldn’t have known about it, and didn’t know how to explain that he did, and it was horrible. “They’re _starving_ , and the planet is dying. If they don’t starve to death, the atmospherics will kill them, the temperature changes, disease-” He shook his head, and gripped the rail. “Did I tell you about when I grew up?”

“Not really. Just bits about people, and the program. You were born on Arkanis and grew up on Star Destroyers in exile. And you were on Jakku during the final battle of the war, and saw it yourself.”

“I lied about Jakku, mostly. I was there, but I didn’t see most of the battle. I didn’t see the Republic bring down Sloane’s Super Star Destroyer.” He always wondered what that must have been like, watching a ship that size impact in the desert. It would have been amazing.

He turned to face Ren. “We didn’t have anything in exile, Ren. We didn’t have food, water. Heat. Air, sometimes. Light. Clothing. Things that should be taken for granted. I saw children and adults die of exposure on the ships, I saw them starve to death, or suffocate. For years. We didn’t have what we now consider a baseline for quality of life until I was seventeen.” He swept his hand out again, indicating the city. He turned, leaning on the rail again, not looking at Ren. “I hate seeing it. It’s awful, and I know what it’s like.”

Ren was stunned for a moment, his thoughts reeling. “You… didn’t have air?”

“Not when the oxygen generators stopped functioning.”

“And you _stayed_ , after you grew up? How hard were you brainwashed, Hux?”

This seemed like a real question, and Hux turned, glaring at Ren. “I made it better, Ren. None of that happens any more. It happens on the planets we contact, and it happens every day in the New Rep-”

“ _Hux_. I’m the Supreme Leader. I know the fucking propaganda.”

Hux was annoyed that Ren didn’t understand. “It’s why-”

Ren sighed, turning and leaning his back against the rail. “Okay, whatever. You didn’t tell me you grew up begging for oxygen and heat in Wild Space. Even though I’ve known you for fifteen years. It’s a little hard to believe.”

Hux’s face reddened. “I don’t like to remember it. For obvious reasons. Most of the remaining Officers and Stormtroopers choose to forget it, like I do. We used to have reprogramming initiatives to help wipe it entirely, or frame the conditions more positively.”

Ren frowned. “Like… you couldn’t eat because the New Republic was greedy, and every day brought you closer to bringing them down?”

“Yes. Props like that.”

“So, you hate the New Republic-”

“ _No_ ,” Hux insisted, interrupting him. “It’s not because I was brainwashed.”

Ren just stared at him, still frowning.

“I’m not. But it did motivate me to change things in the Order for the better. I can’t help it you grew up a spoiled prince.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Ren scrubbed at his face, then looked over at Hux, slightly disturbed. “Fine. I don’t know what it’s like. Because you never told me.”

Hux wanted to stay angry, but Ren had mostly conceded the point, and Hux told himself it was good enough. “Then you see why we have to help them.”

“I see. But Hux. You understand, about how what we’re going to do to these people will look? To them, and to people who aren’t you?”

Hux sighed, willing himself not to get angry. This wasn’t a fight. “Do you think I’m completely deluded about what we do? Yes, we will be pulling these people from their homes, whether they like it or not. We will probably put them on a colony world where we had to exterminate the native population in order to preserve resource production. And then they will farm food for us. But they’ll be able to take care of each other, and we won’t be leaving them to die like the Republic did. _Supreme Leader_.”

It came out harsher than he would have liked. But Ren _was_  the Supreme Leader, and had made it clear that Ren was complicit too.

Ren still made for an odd fit as Supreme Leader of the First Order. Practically speaking, not much had changed. High Command still directed the Order, based on what Hux and Ren decided. Since their reconciliation, Ren had allowed Hux more autonomy and staff to direct basic operations, and their advance into New Republic territory was beginning to move faster.

Ren didn’t do public appearances or speeches, but neither had Snoke. Ren hadn’t replaced his helmet, and the Officers and Troopers gave him more deference than before. He sometimes went to active combat situations, though he was no longer fighting with the ground forces or doing special missions. He did still fly a starfighter in occasional dogfights, despite Hux’s protests. He’d begun taking over more of the Trooper Training program, and he was as much motivation as he was teacher.

Hux was still more of a public figure than Ren, and he still recorded most of their main propaganda and announcements. But he wasn’t the Supreme Leader, so his role remained largely the same. His promotion to Grand Marshall had changed very little about his life.

It wasn’t what Hux had imagined for them, the grand and glorious problem-free future where everything came easily to them. But it suited them. Hux had come to terms with it after their reconciliation.

“It’s hard to start a new life,” he continued. His gaze had been fixed on a nearby building, trying to decide if it appeared melted due to fire, or acid rain, or some sort of internal calamity. When he turned to Ren, he found that he had Ren’s complete attention. “Some people can’t do it at all, Ren. The shock of a sudden change will kill some of these people. And for others, maybe the changes will somehow be for the worst. But maybe a few good things will happen, even to those who don’t survive. And sometimes it’s worth the risk. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Instead of answering, Ren pushed past him, walking along the row of broken statuary. He stopped again in front of the bearded human at the end. Hux followed, annoyed that Ren hadn’t answered him.

“My uncle Luke told me about the Emperor, and about how he was secretly Darth Sidious,” Ren began. “A Sith. My grandfather’s master.” He turned. “Do you know what these statues are?”

This time, Hux shook his head, wondering what Ren was getting at.

“These are the Lost Twenty, my uncle told me. In the history of the Jedi Order, only twenty people left after completing their trials to become a Jedi Knight.”

“Only twenty, in all the thousands of years of the Jedi Order? Very effective retention,” Hux commented, crossing his arms. “We’ve only lost one so far.”

“The one you lost brought down your base,” Ren continued, ignoring him. He reached up, touching the statue’s shoulder. “My uncle told me this one was Dooku of Serenno, the leader of the Separatists.”

Hux straightened, studying the face more closely. “It does look like him.” He looked down the lines of statues again, counting the twenty. “Why would the Emperor pull these out of the Temple and give them a place of honor in his garden?”

“To gloat, probably,” Ren said, dropping his hand, but still staring into the statue’s face. “My uncle claimed he was taught by… former Jedi Masters. Those who had died and become one with the Force, whose beings could still reach out to the living. He claimed that they taught him how Dooku left the Jedi Order to join the Sith, that he was the Emperor’s apprentice before my grandfather. Dooku turned his back on the Jedi Order, only to be betrayed and killed by his own master. It was a lesson about what happens when you leave the path of the Light.”

Hux crossed his arms, studying Ren’s profile. A faint breeze finally blew across the rooftop, rattling the dead plants around them. “You turned your back on the Jedi Order, too. But you’ve always been a miserable student.”

Ren turned, his expression still grave. “Yeah.”

When he didn’t continue, Hux rolled his eyes. “I’m sick of talking circles around each other. Are you happy, Ren? Could you imagine your life any other way? Do you enjoy murdering villages full of aliens and repopulating them with displaced refugees that don’t want to be there? Or would you have rather stayed with your uncle, and never met me or joined the Order?”

“Hux. You are such an asshole.” He reached out and rested his hands gently on either side of Hux’s chest, then slid them down to his waist. Hux still felt naked in these tunics, and Ren’s enormous hands made him feel even more exposed. But rather than protest, he put his own hands on Ren’s shoulders.

Ren blinked at him, his grave expression softening. “We would have met eventually. You would have found me no matter what.”

It was true six times over, and would have continued to be true if Hux hadn’t been forced to stop. Despite how difficult it had sometimes been, Hux felt like finding Ren was inevitable, because he could live no other way. He needed Ren, and so did the First Order, the organization that had grown up with him and was as much a part of him as his own heartbeat.

So he kissed Ren, as hard and as deep as he could, tangling his fingers in Ren’s soft hair and sucking on Ren’s lower lip. Ren tightened his grip on his waist and drew him closer, hugging him tightly, tasting Hux.

Hux had him back. He had it all back. He felt Ren’s thoughts in his own, Ren’s love and appreciation, his hesitance, how much he missed Hux, and a hint of fear that Hux would still use him. But Ren knew he couldn’t help it, that Hux was Hux, and Ren would always follow.

_Ren_ , he tried. _Stop me if I do it. I’m not trying to use you, not like Snoke, I just want-_

Ren squeezed him tighter, wrapping an arm around his waist. Hux pulled away from the kiss, closing his eyes. Ren knew him. Ren knew him and understood him, and had been the only person in Hux’s life who had ever been close, who had ever cared about him. But he knew he couldn’t take that for granted, that it wasn’t fair to Ren to make him read all of Hux’s thoughts and interpret them correctly. Ren had to _understand_. So Hux finished his thought out loud.

“All of it, Ren. I want all of you. I want your power and your position, but I want the rest of it too. I want your anger and your loyalty, and the part of you that doesn’t wear underwear and chased me across the galaxy after killing all your friends.” Hux opened his eyes, finally looking up at him. “All of it, good and bad. I don’t care.”

Ren’s thoughts were overwhelmed, and he was staring down at Hux in adoration. He couldn’t believe Hux was saying these things, and that he meant them sincerely. Hux had changed so much, and it still seemed too good to be true.

But then he opened his mouth and ruined it. “Will you call me Supreme Leader from now on?”

Hux frowned, pushing him away. “No.” He began walking back toward the landing pad. “Let’s take a look at the palace I just gave you.”

“How did you give it to me?”

“You wanted it, and I decided it was yours now. Come. We’ll evacuate the planet, and then begin the renovations. We’ll make it your base of operations, if you wish.”

“Hux, I don’t want… a _palace_. Especially the old Emperor’s palace. That’s tacky. A ship is fine. The _Finalizer_. It’s not like either of us have ever needed more.”

“Neither of us have been the Supreme Leader before.” Ren caught up, and slipped his arm around Hux’s waist again, tugging at the back of his belt. Hux hid a smirk. It was ridiculous how much Ren enjoyed the tunic.

“It’s not like it’s any harder than what I was doing before. And Snoke never did anything with it. He had everyone run it for him. They can just-” he waved vaguely at the sky. “Keep doing whatever they did before. We don’t need a palace, or a base or whatever for that.”

“Those people are dead.”

“Promote new ones.”

“ _Ren_.”

“ _Supreme Leader_.”

“ _Ren_. The _Supremacy_  is gone too, the former central base of operations for the Order. Incidentally, we need to replace it. Badly.”

“I’m just saying, Hux. Our track record with ground-based operations hasn’t been good lately.”

Hux frowned up at him, feigning irritation. “Then what will you do with this palace I just gifted you?”

“Fix it up. We’ll come here together, since you like the ghosts.”

Hux was offended at this. “We can’t pay to renovate it just for that! You have to use it for something.”

“It’s probably still fine inside, we won’t need to renovate it. And if we do, I promise not to show you how much it costs.” He gestured behind them. “I’ll even have a statue of your dad put in that clearing with the Jedi, so you can gloat like the old Emperor did.”

Hux glanced behind them. The statues were no longer visible through the forest of dead vines and stripped trunks, but he smirked. It would be amusing, and would look like an honor. And so incongruous among all the Jedi.

“ _Fine_ ,” he gritted out. “But we’ll have to use it for diplomatic and social gatherings, if you insist on doing any renovations.”

“Hux. We don’t do that now. Neither of us. We aren’t good at it.”

Hux wrinkled his nose, ignoring that. “We have to do it.”

“Do you think Snoke met with friends and foreign dignitaries?”

“Do you think Snoke was a good Supreme Leader?”

Ren grinned, the smile lighting his face. He put out a palm, throwing the locked door into the palace open with a loud groan of strained metal. Hux wondered if it would slide closed after them. The mechanisms were certainly dead, and likely shattered now. Anyone could land here.

“They won’t, though. I told you, this place drives most people away. It’s haunted.”

“ _Haunted_.” Hux rolled his eyes. “By the screaming ghosts of vengeful Jedi. They saved up all those emotions they weren’t allowed to feel in life so they could turn into ghosts and hate people after they died.”

The hallways were dark, and Hux couldn’t see a thing. He let Ren lead him, trusting that Ren could somehow sense in the Force where they were going, or had some specific reason for entering the building. It didn’t smell like urine in here, at least, so Ren was probably right that no one was squatting. At least on the top floors.

“I’m telling you, Hux. Using the Imperial Palace will send the wrong message. No one likes Palpatine anymore.”

“You’re right,” Hux conceded after a moment. “But you wanted it, and it’s yours now. My gift to you. It has nothing to do with Snoke, or the Order, or your powers.”

“I mean, it used to be the Jedi Temple. And then it belonged to the Emperor. Who was a Sith. Hux. It’s all those things.”

“It’s not any more. But if it will make it any more tempting, imagine how much your uncle would hate you having it.”

Ren’s mood turned slightly darker at that. But his uncle was dead, and it was a relief for both of them. “He would.”

“Well then, what a great gift. Make sure the power works before you move in. We need lights.”

Hux jumped as a low thumping sound began echoing through the walls and the empty dark spaces. He clutched at Ren, cursing himself for leaving his blaster behind. Suddenly, he was blinded by bright, flickering light. He clenched his eyes shut against the illumination, frozen in place and panicking. Had they tripped someone’s security systems? He shouldn’t have taken Ren’s word that it was deserted, or maybe the Emperor had left traps, or maybe-

He could feel Ren’s amusement curling through his thoughts. He opened his eyes, looking down a wide hallway, decorated with red papered walls and beige tiles, a few large paintings on either side and grand doorways leading off in several directions. Large holoscreens flickered overhead, and it took Hux a moment to realize they were meant to project a clear view of the sky to mimic grand glass domes. Several of the lights were out, but there was more than enough to see by.

“Emergency power cells still worked. I fixed it.”

“Right,” Hux muttered, turning to him. “Congratulations, your magic managed to make this place even more creepy. Are you happy?”

Ren grinned. “Yeah. I am.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Guigemar](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16302884) by [Vadianna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vadianna/pseuds/Vadianna)
  * [Bisclavret](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16358306) by [Vadianna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vadianna/pseuds/Vadianna)




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